


All That Burns

by Cara_Loup



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe - Medieval, Cover Art, M/M, Romance, Swords, Templar Knights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 03:13:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1966830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cara_Loup/pseuds/Cara_Loup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In AD 1313, the captain of the <i>Falcon</i> takes two fugitive Templar knights aboard his ship and soon finds himself embroiled in the worst kind of trouble. In other words, a tale about Han and Luke set in medieval times.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Burns

**Author's Note:**

> original artwork by zyene (c) 1999

It was on days like these, when the sun sat in the sky proud and hard like Arabian gold, when no breath of air stirred out from the sea, that he could feel his bones tighten and dry. The waiting put winter into his body, even at the height of summer.

The ship’s captain pushed a thick fall of dark hair out of his eyes. He should have grown past the troublesome ferment of youth, twitching with such constant unrest. At his age, most men had houses built and families settled by the fireplace, awaiting the husband’s return with riches and tales from _Outremer_.

The man on the ship’s forecastle snorted softly. It was not for him, this life within the ramparts and walls of the cities, and the only tales he liked to hear were not of conquests and tournaments but stories of travels east or west, to the Blessed Isles and beyond.

He turned for a glance at the flabby misery of the mainsail. She was a sleeping beauty under the polished sky, his ship with her wide, deep hull, curved stem, and raised castles fore and aft. Under the right wind, she flew like a white gull across the waters. Come spring, perhaps he’d finally hire craftsmen to add the third mast he dreamed of. It went against all the traditions of the trade, but he knew it could be done, and the speed of her would be matchless.

When he turned back, two men walked along the pier, clad in light mail and riding breeches, though they had no horses with them. Sheathed swords gleamed at their hips, but they didn’t stalk along with the proud assurance of lords, the shadows of dust and sweat staining their short cloaks. Though they never paused in their stride, their eyes wandered furtively across the tackle of several cogs and barges, all lying in wait for a change in the weather. Perhaps the two travelers were looking for a passage along the coast.

The ship’s captain shrugged to himself. Ever since he’d ferried a querulous flock of bishops and abbots to the Holyland, he no longer took passengers unless they paid double, and these two didn’t look like they had swelling purses stowed in their lodge. Sunlight glinted silver off their mail and their bare, pale heads. One of them was almost white, strands sticking out in an untidy circle around a disappearing tonsure, yet the other had hair the color of wheat. A lazy breeze swept it back from his face as the captain watched them ― not the strong wind that he craved like other men craved gold or the white softness of a woman’s breasts. His hands closed around the railing, knotting with impatience.

He’d had his cargo stocked two weeks before the mowing of the pastures, and now the sweet scent of drying hay filled the air, and he was still waiting for the right wind to lift. He looked to the horizon, longing for the promise of a cloud, but the sky was swept clean all through the west and south. The pope’s wine would turn sour in its skins if the lull lasted much longer.

When the ninth hour rang out across the city, the captain gave in to the rumbling in his stomach and leaped down to the pier. Some of the vendors greeted him as he passed the gate; at one of their stalls he picked up a yellow apple. He’d prowled the port long enough to be recognized in the taverns of Naples, and the whores no longer bared their breasts for him. Still chewing on his apple, he walked into the first alehouse, a loud, cavernous den lined with wooden benches, and sat down at the corner of the single long table. The serving maid leaned past him so that he could smell the mixture of roast meat and salt water on her, and he gave her the low-lidded kind of look that always fetched a gap-toothed smile to her brown face.

Once she’d set the stew and an alepot down in front of him, he paid no more attention to the crowd, the rowdy concert of voices mingling with the clatter of cups and spoons. He’d almost finished eating when the brawl broke out.

From where he sat, all he could catch was an abrupt commotion among the mariners and vendors who’d thronged around the ale barrel, but his right hand went instantly for the dagger at his hip. Over the din, a guttural voice yelled curses in the heavy brogue of the south, and next a drawn sword flashed in the weak spill of daylight that fell in through the doorway. The steely shine of that unsheathed blade cooled everyone’s fighting mood within the space of a breath.

Disgruntled, the ship’s captain drained his mug. Snotty high-borns should know better than to come picking fights with the patrons of a portside tavern. When he looked up again, the two knights he’d watched haunting the pier were approaching his end of the table.

While the younger man kept glancing over his shoulder, one hand still gripping the sword-hilt, his elder companion bowed formally, a courtesy rarely applied to commoners. "May we sit with you?"

"I’m not the taverner, suit yourself," the captain answered and heard the brusque edge in his voice. "Hanfred the shipwright’s son of Solo," he introduced himself to make up for that sharp retort, "if that means anything to you. Han for short, yells better."

The old man smiled indulgently, but his companion turned to regard Han with less than comprehension. Being a nobleman, he should understand the need for yelling, Han reflected. Startled blue eyes studied him from beneath a wild tousle of fair hair as the young man lowered himself on the bench. A handsome face like that, shaved clean and bronzed lightly by the sun, could have graced the royal court of Anjou or Navarre.

"You are headed to the port of Marseilles?" the elder knight inquired.

So they’d asked around. Han shrugged. "I’m carrying a shipment of wine and incense for the court in Avignon and spice for the Count of Flanders."

The young knight murmured something in rapid Norman, probably hoping Han wouldn’t understand a word. Too bad that he’d been around enough to pick up the patois of a dozen ports.

"A papal escort will be waiting for this ship in Marseilles," the youth was saying. "We can’t risk―"

"Patience." The older man clasped a restraining hand round his shoulder.

"What is this, local trouble?" Han asked. He gauged them again for the fare. From the ragged, travel-stained look of their clothing, the two knights could have been separated from their liege lord’s host in some _Outremer_ campaign. Sometimes the stragglers of a worsted army took years to return to their home counties.

"We are in a hurry to reach Roussillon, north of Marseilles," the older man hedged, and a guarded look came over his face. "We need a fast ship to take us to Provence."

"Fast ship?" Han leaned back with folded arms. "I’ve carried a cartload of amber from the coasts of Normandy to Alexandria before the waning of the moon," he boasted, "and I expect a purse full of silver from each passenger."

While the youth gave an angry start, his elder companion looked unruffled. "We’ve sold our horses," he answered dispassionately. "That must be our fare, but if you deliver us safely to our lands, there will be a reward for you."

Han took his time to consider. Unlike the clergymen who’d howled doleful prayers morning, noon and night, surely these two wouldn’t complain about meager rations and the rigors of harsh winds, and their swords could be useful if pirates attacked. He slid another glance at the youth whose hair gleamed darkly gold in the dimness of the tavern. Subdued anger sparking in those intense, luminous eyes, he looked near to bursting with energy.

Han nodded. "You’ve seen my ship in the harbor. The _Falcon_ , only _cocha_ with two masts. Can’t miss it."

The two of them traded quick, puzzled glances at that.

"Anything wrong with it?" Han asked.

"I once traveled aboard a ship of the same name." The old man smiled wistfully. "She carried many of us to safety in the year 1291, when Acre fell to the Mamluks."

"The year I was born," the younger man added softly.

"It is a good omen," his companion agreed, inclining his head as he rose. "We shall meet you there before prime."

Only when they’d lost themselves in the tavern’s shifting crowd did it occur to Han that they hadn’t given their names.

* * *

In the small hours, he climbed the forecastle again and studied the frosted diamond pattern of stars. He’d had a compartment cleared for the passengers and listened to the mariners’ jibes about the bedding habits of high-borns, but when he’d stretched out on his own mattress below the aft deck, he’d found himself far from the shores of sleep. There was no sound now except the rumor of sluggish harbor waters against the ship’s hull, blending into intermittent snores and heavy breathing. Most of the sailors slept on the main deck, under open sky, and those who’d found lodging in the city knew to come back when the weather turned. But still there was no breeze.

When Han turned aft, he saw the broad-shouldered silhouette of his first mate Jehan stoop over the lowered mizzen yard, his long chestnut mane falling in a curtain over his face. They’d both grown sleepless, these past weeks of waiting. A moment later, Han pivoted at the soft creaking of planks under leather boots. His two passengers had walked up the ramp almost unnoticed, invasive shadows in the dark.

"When are we leaving?" the young one asked, sweeping a curious glance around the ship.

"As soon as we have a wind to fill our sails," Han said grouchily.

"We shall pray for it." The old man gave his beard a brief tug as if to ward off a smile. "I am Ben, a priest. This is... Brother Luc Cielet," he added in graceful Norman, the short silence that severed his words pronouncing something best kept a secret. Both of them placed a hand over their chests and bowed with studied decorum.

"Honored by your presence, messires," Han answered with a flourish of his own, amused by their outlandish courtliness. _Cielet_ , he thought. _Little sky_. The name went well with those unworldly blue eyes.

"Call me Luke." The young man grinned at him and looked suddenly like a peasant boy.

When Han showed them to their cabin, he noticed that they carried their swords and winter cloaks in ragged bundles and nothing else besides a leather satchel slung over Ben’s shoulder. From it, the old man retrieved a purse and handed it to Han. The weight of silver coins in his palm wasn’t nearly what he’d expected. Their mounts must have been starved nags.

"This is all we have," Luke said defensively.

"Keep it." On a moment’s impulse, Han tossed the purse back at him, and with the quick movement of a hand came a dazzled smile as Luke caught it.

"You’ll need that much for meals and lodging when we sail into Genoa," Han told him. "Your family in Provence can provide for your passage."

"It isn’t family we have there. Just friends," Ben qualified while he unfastened his cloak ― as if they couldn’t be too sure of the fact. His sleeve slipped back, and in the wavering light of a single candle, Han saw the shape of the cross etched into the wrinkling skin of his right forearm. How could he be a priest anyway, and carry arms at the same time?

"So you’ve fought in the Holyland," Han said conversationally.

Again they traded glances that avowed their need for secrecy, the wordless exchange ending with a dip of Ben’s head.

"We are Templars," Luke answered quietly. "The last of our order."

"What’s in it for you, the stake?"

"Then you’ve heard? All members of our order have been accused of witchcraft and sodomy and sins against the Sacred Sacraments."

Sodomy he’d never heard before, some Latin kind of curse it had to be, and the rest was equal parts the peasants’ world he’d escaped long ago and the Holy Church of Rome with its many wars against enemies unseen. Han shrugged. "So walk on water, if you’re a witch."

The blue eyes hardened, and Luke turned to take old Ben’s cloak from him.

When Han resumed his watch over the waning night, the sailors were stirring from their drunken sleep, and a gray sheen of morning hung over Vesuvio’s shoulder. He’d just traded a purse full of silver for a secret, a promise of prayers to Saint Nicholas, patron of all men at sea, and the youth’s smile.

With the third hour came a big wind out of the east. Perhaps they were witches after all.

* * *

The following day, when the _Falcon_ sailed before that crisp, unrelenting gale and there was nothing much to do except keeping her steady on course, Luke joined him at the fore.

"Ben says we’ll take only a week to the coast of Provence, though it’s two hundred leagues away." His lean hand gestured lightly, with the ease of one used to handling fine things without noticing, but his skin lacked the pale tone of the courtier. It was an honest, tanned shade like any sailor’s.

"Would you tell me about the places you’ve seen?" he asked.

Han grinned. "Might take longer than you think."

The wind swept Luke’s hair into his eyes, and he shook it back with a toss of the head. "I’ve got time."

Han looked at him thinking how he’d prodded other captains for their stories years ago. "Picture Constantinople," he started, the sight of it clear before his inner eye. "Early in the morning, with the sun just rising over a whole forest of white towers. There’s a fog over the water, and the city looks like it’s afloat between sea and sky. You think you can see a second sun light up behind its walls, then another and another, until you realize that it’s daybreak catching on golden roofs..."

He’d just described the silhouette of Venice on the horizon when the crew started preparing their supper rations. Han broke off and grinned at the look of dazzled excitement in Luke’s eyes. "I’ll tell you more tomorrow," he promised, "if the weather holds."

By the third day of unfaltering wind from the south, Han’s stories moved from his own travels to the famous voyages of Maelduin and Jean de Mandeville which he lived in his mind like he’d sailed every league along with them and looked with his own eyes at the people of Antipodes and the island that turned incessantly like a mill.

"I spent most of my life on Cyprus," Luke said. He sat cross-legged on the salt-bitten planks, hands resting loosely on his thighs. "I can’t think what it must be like to travel from one distant country to the next."

"It’s not as if I’ve seen them all," Han admitted with sudden, sharp regret. "There’s not much trade out west or down the outer coast of Africa."

He paused, recalling a time when the Mediterranean had seemed endless, and a single crossing pushed the limits of his imagination. But lately, the familiar shorelines had become tiring obstacles, and every contract a shackle that tied him to a fixed destination while his plans circled refitting the _Falcon_ for more ambitious journeys.

"Maybe next year," he said aloud, catching the thoughtless smile that curled Luke’s mouth as he looked up.

Sometimes, when curiosity burned high in Luke’s eyes, Han thought that he might have chosen a life at sea for himself, if he hadn’t been born into a noble house. It had never occurred to him before that any lord might wish for a life other than conquests and harassing the _villeins_ who farmed their lands.

"How long since you left Cyprus?" Han asked.

"Nigh on three years." Luke clasped his hands together and glanced down at them. "Only Ben and I escaped the trials and made it to Sicily. We’ve wandered from one refuge to the next since then."

Once again Han’s tongue worked faster than his mind, and he asked, "Is Ben your father?"

True, the old man was a priest, but even though their kind couldn’t marry, it hardly kept them from begetting bastard children left and right.

"No." When Luke turned his face aside, the wind flipped his hair back from the clear forehead. "My father was killed in the battle of Acre," he said after a pause, "and my mother took shelter with the Order to give birth that same year. She died before I was weaned. The Templars raised me."

"And made you one of them."

That brought Luke’s eyes back to him. "I had a choice," he said firmly.

Han tried to think what it must mean to a man of noble blood, to be torn from his inheritance and family. The high-borns made so much of their sacred bloodlines. "I never knew my father either," he offered, though it hardly compared.

"You said your father was a shipwright."

Han shook his head. "The shipwright took me in and taught me his craft. I’ve been many things. I was a soldier, a carpenter, a sailor. I ran off the day our village was burned."

Another flash of curiosity wiped out every trace of the brooding look on Luke’s face. "And you’ve built the _Falcon_ yourself?"

"With my own hands." Han lifted and turned them as if for proof, splaying his fingers, but when Luke studied his hands with serious attention, he began to feel awkward about it. His wrists were marked by the pale lines of repeated rope burns, and a scar left by a woodcutter’s knife ran down from the groove between his left middle and forefinger. He lowered his hands slowly. "There’s no _cocha_ like her," he said.

Luke nodded. "She has two different sails."

"You noticed." Amusement bent Han’s mouth. Shipbuilders on every shore had frowned at his combination of square and lateen canvas, calling the _Falcon_ a cross-breed, but they always stopped sneering when he told them about the speeds she made.

"I have plans for her..." Han said and on impulse added, "Come up aft, and I’ll show you."

In a corner behind the windlass used for hoisting the anchor, a wooden box held his tools and all the instruments needed for navigation. From it, Han took the wax tablet he used for sketching and calculating. He pressed his palm against the hardened surface, warming it, and with a stylus scratched a sweeping outline into the wax.

"A third mast," Luke said, studying the design.

"It’ll carry another square rig above the forecastle, just smaller." Han smoothed the grainy wax with his thumb. "Lateens work best sailing against the wind, but try changing tack with them." At Luke’s puzzled expression, he pointed up the mizzen mast. "That’s a name for the triangular sail. Times I think it might be useful to have a yard that swings upward on the main mast, then you could turn the square into a lateen and use it both ways. Takes trained crew though."

"But you could sail to the far corners of the world that way," Luke suggested. He looked excited like a boy who’d just caught his first glimpse of infinity from the water’s edge.

_You could come along_ , sat at the tip of Han’s tongue. But over Luke’s shoulder, he saw Ben stroll towards them across the weather deck, and he remembered again what they were. Noblemen fighting in the service of an invisible kingdom.

"Aye," Han said distantly, "that I could."

* * *

On their fourth day of traveling up the coast, Jehan asked the two knights for a demonstration of their sword-play. And they agreed good-naturedly, like vagrant _jongleurs_ providing entertainment for a noble audience, living off the scraps tossed from some high lord’s table. Now they were dancing back and forth beneath the square rig in loose shirts and breeches, blades whirling in the midday heat.

Han leaned back against the ladder that climbed the fore as he watched. Most of the crew huddled aft, gawking and shouting at each clash of steel. Up ‘til now, the Templar knights had been nothing to him except sordid rumors. Several years ago, according to the stories traded in portside taverns, the king of France had had a hundred of them burned, still screaming out protest of their innocence, no less, and that was when the Order finally gave up all resistance, leaving the king and the pope to snarl over their possessions like dogs over a bone. They were fighting monks, a curiosity, and a provocation to the avaricious eyes of the Church.

If the priests had it right, God had created the world in a simple order. Just as there were men and women, high-borns and commoners, no man could be two things at once. Han grinned. And pigs would grow wings on the morrow. It was said that Saracen kings kept servants who never grew beards, with voices high and sweet as those of young girls, and he’d heard tales from the east where Cynocephali lived, their bodies those of men up to their shoulders on which they wore the heads of wolves. Perhaps the priests secretly feared that their minds couldn’t grasp the true order God had intended with all the strange and savage things in his creation. If there was any. Han had his doubts at times.

Some steps away, Luke pivoted out of old Ben’s striking range, and they reversed positions with the elegance of an elaborate dance. So close to the young man, Han could hear his faster breathing and track the ripples of muscle where the shirt clung to the sweat on his skin. And for reasons he didn’t care to name, it made a difference seeing him this way.

Luke stood over a head shorter than he, but from the way he handled his sword, he’d learned how to use that to his advantage in a fight. He was fast and adroit with his blade that spun and shimmered dangerously under the sun like noon lightning. And right now, with his skin flushed over the cheekbones and that brightness in his eyes, he was more than handsome, he was beautiful in an innocent, predatorous way that reminded Han of the Palestinian lions, slender and slighter than their cousins in Lybia, untiring hunters of the mountains. He felt a quick thrill tighten his chest and looked away, at the glazed excitement that played across the faces of his crew.

On the far side of the deck, Jehan stood by the tiller, his shaggy beard split by a wide grin. When their eyes met, he cocked an eyebrow at Han and sent a pointed glance over at Luke. Surely Jehan hadn’t failed to notice how much time they’d spent together. Han scrunched his face into the most unrevealing expression to cover his unease. It was a curse running in his blood, always the desire for things impossible, and the churning impatience that gripped him when he looked out to the edge of the sea.

The mock-duel was interrupted by a sudden shout from a man sitting on the aft railing. Following the direction of his outstretched arm, Han turned and shadowed his eyes, but all he could see was a bright speck in the haze of the western horizon.

"Man the topcastle," he ordered.

Only when he wheeled back did he notice that it was Luke, because he’d been standing closest to the rigging, who climbed the ratlines on the shrouds. Han had known men who were fearful of heights, even sailors, but the youth scaled the tackle like he’d been doing it all his life.

The mast creaked, and when Han tilted his head back at the flare of sky, the sail billowed outward and the main yard cut into a field of radiant, unbroken blue. Luke was balancing across the yard, his form and face black with the sun at his back, the fair hair catching wind and daylight like a banner. Another step, and he’d be walking out into the sky.

"I see two sails approaching," he called.

" _Santemaire_ ," Jehan muttered, "protect us."

Han chewed on his lower lip as he ran some quick calculations in his head. At a distance of perhaps nine leagues to the southwest lay Corsica, but if these were merchants heading for a port in Tuscany, they’d drifted way off course.

_Not in a wind like this_ , Han thought, sprinting aft with Jehan close behind. All around the Ligurian Sea, experienced captains avoided the scraggy Corsican shores as much as they could, and for a very good reason.

"You think they’re pirates," said a calm voice at their backs.

Old Ben had pulled himself up the rungs to the castle deck, puffing just a little from the exertion of the sparring match. "Unless the Sicilian portmasters sent men to collect unpaid levies from you. The freight you carry―"

"I’ve paid those blood-sucking leeches to the penny," Han growled. "Got nothing belowdecks they haven’t sniffed and pawed." It was true, he’d sometimes stowed away balsam jars or bales of crimson cloth between his declared cargo, when some high and mighty lord slapped a ban on whatever goods he saw fit to claim as his privilege. But not on this voyage.

When he glanced west again, the pale specks had segmented into the shapes of two single-masted ships, their build heavier than that of the _Falcon_ , most likely sailing under often-patched rigs, if the ragged, untidy look of them was any indication.

"We can outrun them," Han said confidently. "Watch it, you haven’t seen anything yet." 

While Jehan worked the stern rudder, Ben stood beside him, the skin around his eyes crinkling as he squinted into the southwest, his mouth set in a tight line. Oddly, Han could feel that same tingle of tension settling in the pit of his stomach. He began shouting orders, his crew snapping into action with the honed reflexes of repeated drills. It paid, Han thought, to have them rehearse maneuvers like this one whenever an uneventful cruise left them idle.

Within moments, they swung the main yard out of the wind and trimmed the mainsail as the _Falcon_ tacked about. The lateen took over, leeward shrouds pulled fast, and for a short while they were beating to windward, on a southeastern course.

Luke had climbed down from the topcastle and joined them aft, face aglow from the slicing wind and sheer excitement. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Stay out of the way of my men," Han said harshly and almost bit his tongue the next moment. This was no way of talking to a high-born, and he had no reason for his anger except the distractions of his own blood. When he turned away, Luke’s hand on his shoulder reeled him back.

"What have I done to you?" he demanded, his voice quiet, though temper blazed in his eyes, and his jaw was taut with anger.

For long moments, they stared at each other, belligerent heat flaring between them at the worst of times.

"You’re not planning to seek shelter at the coast, are you?" Ben’s voice intervened with barely a quizzical inflection, but it served to tip the mood. Eyes downcast, Luke stepped back and joined the old man at the stern.

Relieved and annoyed to the same degree, Han shook his head. "Just trying to mislead them. If they change tack, we’ll know they’re following us, but those bulk ships maneuver slowly. We’ll get back into the wind in moments, and they’ll never catch up with us. Even if they do, we can always repeat the trick."

The two knights traded apprehensive looks, but neither said anything more.

 

As it turned out, the two Corsican _cochas_ were harder to shake off than Han would have believed. Traffic between Naples and Genoa was busy enough for pirates to take their pick of fat cargos, and their brazen insistence bothered him into commanding his crew through a string of fast-paced evasions. There’d better be extra rations of wine for everyone tonight, Han told himself. From the corner of his eye, he could see Luke at the ship’s stern where he’d stayed all along, watchful and unmoving. Han felt the young man’s eyes on him, a constant prickle between his shoulder-blades.

By the time the sun set in a pool of liquid bronze, no more sign of pursuit troubled the horizon west or south. Han called the signals for a well-earned rest, but as a precaution had a sentinel posted in the topcastle all night. Relieving Jehan after supper, he took the first watch himself. Tension ran still high in his body and refused to ease off as blue dusk deepened into night. Somehow it didn’t surprise him to see Ben’s white head climb above the level of the aft deck like a smaller moon at the fall of darkness.

"When will we reach Genoa?" the old man asked quietly.

"With dawn, if the wind doesn’t fail."

"And from there, two more days to Marseilles?"

Han gave a curt nod.

"Is it necessary that we drop anchor in Genoa and lose another day?" Ben probed. "What if we sailed straight for Marseilles?"

Han rubbed at his chin, thinking. He would have liked another look at the Genoese shipyards, see if he could pick up any new designs, but the water supplies in their barrels wouldn’t go foul for days to come, and they were stocked up with provisions to last them much longer. 

"Tell me why," he said.

"I fear those who hunted us today were no ordinary pirates." Ben pulled his cloak tighter around himself.

"You’re saying they were after Luke and yourself?" By light of reason, it sounded a little wild, to think anyone would take the trouble of chasing after two solitary knights ― but what did he know? "Why?" Han asked. "Just because they think you’re all witches?"

"The pope believes we’re a danger to the power of the Church, but the king of France needs money," Ben explained. "First he seized the possessions of the Jews, then the Lombards, and then his greedy eye fell on the wealth of our Order." He offered a thin smile. "But, as you can see, our purses are lean nowadays."

"Seems to me you’re fighting a battle that’s already been lost."

"Not all is lost," Ben disagreed in tones that held a measure of steel. "Not while the Grand Master of our order is still held prisoner in Paris, along with several others..." He laid a finger along the side of his nose in a gesture of confidentiality. "With the letters and seals that we carry, it may be possible to free them. This is why we need to take word to our former preceptory of Mas Deu in Roussillon."

"What if you’re attacked on the road?" Han asked uneasily.

"We shall stand and fight our enemies." Ben cocked his head, glancing down to the weather deck where Luke had wandered to the freeboard. "I’m old. If anything happens to me, the boy will be our last hope."

_Hardly a boy anymore_ , Han thought. This was the year 1313, and it made Luke twenty-two.

"Does he know?" Han asked. "I mean, the danger you’re in... and everything else."

"That the future of our Order might depend on him?" The old man shook his head ponderously. "Luke is strong-willed and courageous, but I hesitate to burden him with such a responsibility."

Between one blink of the eye and the next, Han could see him again, the way he’d balanced lightly across the main yard. "Marseilles it is," he said shortly.

"Thank you, Captain." Ben touched his arm. "You shall be rewarded well for your labors."

Like as not, he was referring to some dubious heavenly reward, but Han let it pass. While the old man took himself straight to their cabin, Luke stayed motionless by the raised side of the ship.

He remained like this all through four turns of the hour-glass, keeping his watch over the sea, his face turned out of the moonlight.

_What is it with him?_ Against his own decision not to bother, Han wondered if his sharp words had injured the younger man’s pride. Downright stupid, to fret so much over bruised honor, but noblemen sometimes got that way and worked up perilous moods over it, too. Han folded his fingers around the smoothed grip of the tiller and felt the pressure of the water on the rudder’s blade before he climbed down from the castle deck.

As he approached, Luke seemed to stiffen fractionally, then acknowledged his presence with a short dip of the head.

"There was nothing you could have done today," Han said gruffly. "It takes experienced men to guide a ship this large through quick turns. All the same, I had no reason for shouting at you."

"The pirates worried you," Luke said calmly. "There’s no harm done."

At a loss to guess his thoughts, Han rubbed a crick in his neck. "Then what’s troubling you?"

Luke leaned his chin on his hand and looked out over the dark waters for a moment longer. " _Lameir_ ," he said, turning towards Han with a strange, soft laugh. "That’s how Iseult of Ireland answered Tristan’s question. You know the story?"

"Aye, she was supposed to wed the king of Cornwall," Han answered, bewildered, "but instead she shared a cup of poisoned wine with Tristan, and they couldn’t take their eyes off each other anymore."

Luke nodded. "Tristan didn’t understand what was wrong, and when he asked Iseult what ailed her, she answered, _lameir_." He lifted one shoulder, pausing for a breath. "Tristan didn’t understand that either."

_Neither do I_ , Han thought. _Lameir_ was just another Norman word for the sea, and he could see nothing peculiar about the waves lapping at the _Falcon_ ’s hull in a steady rhythm. Best perhaps to leave the younger man to his musings and court fables, but Luke’s glance traveled from the tackle to the empty horizon in the north. "When you sail at such a distance from the coast," he said in an abrupt shift of mood, "how can you tell which direction to steer your ship?"

"Ask Jehan, he can tell by the color and the taste of the water, by the way the birds fly and the fish travel, and the smells carried on the wind." While he talked, Han noticed how hot days and salty air had started to bleach Luke’s hair and chapped his lips. He should put grease on it before the skin cracked, but as soon as the thought formed, Han could see his own thumb trace the full lower lip. "We have the sun to steer by," he remembered to add, "and the stars at night."

Luke let his head fall back to take in the silver-sprinkled vault overhead. "But the sky is full of stars."

"Takes just one to give you directions. Here, let me show you..." Han went to retrieve the cross-stave from the box. "Turn north," he instructed as he stepped up behind Luke. Reaching over the slighter man’s shoulders, he slid the cross-piece over the perpendicular staff. "You look straight at the pole star, then you compare its position to the marks on the wood, like this."

"The bright one?"

"That’s the one." Han aligned the stave until the bottom was set against the horizon’s murky black line. Under his arms, he could feel Luke’s shoulders lift and sink with each breath, and the soft hair at his nape brushed Han’s bare throat. All of a sudden, he couldn’t move.

"I’ll remember it." Luke swung around, a breathlessness in his voice as if he’d been running. A confused smile tugged his mouth. Han said nothing.

"I’ll remember," Luke repeated before he slipped down the ladder that plunged into the ship’s belly.

Han returned to the tiller and rested his hand on the grip to appraise the struggle of wood and iron against the water. The crazy wind was still blowing. He’d never made this journey in so short a time.

* * *

At daybreak, they passed Genoa, and some of the sailors muttered peevishly when the coastal fires slunk back into foggy grayness. The _Falcon_ headed straight into the west, cutting a sharp line for the white crags that embraced the port of Marseilles like banks of clouds.

At this point of their voyage, Han braced for a gusty inland wind, but there was hardly a breeze from the north to tousle the shrouds. Over the bloated mainsail, the flag streamed and flapped loud as a drum, and the gale that drove them furrowed the Ligurian Sea in a single direction. From the fore, Han watched for the warning signs of a storm, but the gulls circled and swooped lazily, high up in the transparent air.

With the waning of the day, the feeling of speed had grown so strong in him, he could taste it in his mouth and feel it course in his veins like hot, spiced wine.

"I’ll take the first watch again," he said to Jehan as the light faltered on the edges of the sky. Luke hadn’t come for another story today; perhaps the closeness of Marseilles occupied his mind.

"And the second and third," the big man mocked Han with a fond grin. "You let me snooze all through the last night."

"I wasn’t tired." Han turned his back on his friend who read him as clearly as he could predict the weather from the look of the sea. Dusk surrounded them.

Some moments later, a friendly arm settled across his shoulders, roughly the weight of a young tree.

"Get off me," Han grunted. "What if there’s a storm?"

Jehan was the tallest man he’d ever met, strong like a bear, the kind of mariner who could tell the tide’s turning a hundred leagues away from the shore. A large hand closed around the scruff of Han’s neck and shook him like a young dog.

"The only storm you’ve got coming is from your own humors!" Jehan snorted. "And you’re sailing right into it."

Disgruntled, Han listened after the man’s retreating steps. All along the weather deck, his crew spread out their furs and skins, and Jehan raked the ashes in the brazier to make sure no glowing embers remained.

_It’s just one more journey_ , Han told himself, _like any other_. All around him, sounds and scents wove their familiar patterns. The crash and lap of wave to hull, the rustle of rats belowdecks, men snuffling and spitting before they shifted into sleep. Han could smell coal and the rats’ piss and bilgewater which had spilled over the sides of the ship and seeped down into the hold. One more journey, a familiar port tomorrow, and the same patterns repeating themselves spring, summer, and fall.

He’d turned the hour-glass five times when something below the level of actual noise shot into his pulse and flared alarm down his spine. When he glanced over his shoulder, at the slender silhouette climbing the aft deck, he knew it was all he’d been waiting for.

"Can’t sleep?" Han asked.

Luke shook his head.

"You’ll be back on dry land by tomorrow night."

"Yes." The younger man paced out to the stern where he stood with his back rigid and tense while the wind played in his hair.

Han wondered if this could be an invitation, extended in silence, since between them no language existed to speak of it. There was just one way he knew to find out.

Moving quietly, he stood behind Luke and raised his hands to the young man’s shoulders, motioning him backwards with the mere suggestion of a touch. The sway of the midnight sea brought their bodies close together, into a lenience that could have lasted for the night. Anticipation swept a prickle across Han’s skin, and the muscles over his stomach drew taut. But Luke stiffened with the next intake of breath.

"What do you think you’re doing?" he demanded in an incongruous tone of lordship, turning around.

Han crossed his arms. So what if he hadn’t a drop of noble blood flowing in his veins, he was a free man and master on this ship, and the sea had a way of making men look to each other like brothers.

"You believe it then?" Luke asked hotly. "That all of us are sodomites?"

Temper lit his eyes like the glimmer of starlight on the horizon. Han couldn’t help wanting to reach into that banked fire and kindle it more.

"Luke," he drawled with deliberate insolence, "I’m a commoner. Never had no dealings with your sodomy, whatever that is."

Anger disappeared behind incredulous amusement. "Don’t you ever go to confession?"

"It’s been a while."

"The priest would have mentioned it. It’s a sin."

"How can I be doing it when I don’t know what it is?" Han wrapped his fingers around the weather-smoothed edge of the freeboard. "So what is it? Besides not allowed."

"When you fornicate in a way that doesn’t lead to progeny, with beasts, women or men," Luke explained, calm with a tone of puzzlement that had the ring of ignorance to Han’s ears.

_Sodomy_ , he made himself remember that word. _Fornicate_ was another he’d never heard before, but he could guess. The Church had names for everything, big word-makers that they were. "And did you ever?" he asked, out of his breakneck curiosity.

"I have sworn a vow of chastity."

"So you’ve never known pleasure."

"There are many pleasures," Luke said guardedly.

"The Sacred Sacrament, I’ll bet," Han muttered. "But if you haven’t committed this sin of yours, how do you know what I want from you?"

"Perhaps I don’t know."

Even in the dimness he could see that heat had crept into Luke’s face, shadowing his cheekbones, and his lips parted, releasing a fretful breath. Perhaps there was a struggle, but after a few moments, Luke’s jaw set stubbornly. "I thank you for your kindness," he said in cooled tones of courtliness, "but I see now that it was wrong to come here."

"If you say so." Han stepped back to let him pass, hands balled tight with disappointment. There wasn’t anything he could do.

* * *

They drifted into the port of Marseilles with reefed sails when the bells announced Vespers on the following day, and before their ringing stopped, the pope’s cellarer and his armed guard had trotted up the quay on big warsteeds. They must have lodged in town waiting for the shipment over weeks.

While Han’s crewmen were laboring to heave barrels and bulging wineskins from the hold and onto ox carts, the passengers stayed out of sight until the mounted company had departed and the sun turned a sullen shade of copper.

Cloaks wadded into tidy bundles, swords girded, the two knights were ready to set out on their long walk into the mountains.

"Captain, we must take our leave," Ben said, "but if it is God’s will that we reach Mas Deu, I shall send a man to pay for our fares."

Han shrugged. "We might set sail again shortly. Tell your servant, if the ship is no longer in the harbor, he can deposit his purse at the Guild House."

"It shall be done," the old man agreed and stepped forward to clasp Han’s shoulders.

The farewell embrace surprised him for a moment, but perhaps it was the Templars’ custom to exchange kisses of peace even with folk below their own station. He turned to Luke expectantly, not in the mood to excuse him from the commands of courtesy. After brief hesitation, the younger man’s arms went stiffly around him, Luke’s face lifted, and the sunset lit a fierce glow in his eyes.

Before giving it any thought, Han bent his head and kissed him like he’d never kissed anyone, the way the high and mighty lords kissed each other in greeting, or when they traded their questionable promises of peace, a solemn brushing of mouth to mouth. But the mockery he’d intended went up in sparks that slid from his lips down his throat and into his stomach. He held Luke off by his shoulders and wondered why it quickened his breath so. Used though he was to the drag and drift of desire coming at random, there’d always been a simple answer. Pleasures to be grasped with opportunity, while at other times he’d just grin at himself and stick it out. This time, there was no answer.

Luke’s mouth twitched with half a smile, and he slipped from the hold so easily that Han could still feel the firm outline of muscle and bone under his fingers when the two travelers were already descending the gangplank.

And this was the last he’d ever see of them, two solitary men striding off into the city, merging with the shadows dusk laid between the storehouses. The wind had subsided.

"Wash it down with a cup of good wine," Jehan offered his opinion, unasked. They were watching the crew head off to the port taverns.

Han caught the mocking challenge in his friend’s tone and flicked him an irate glance. "What do you know?"

"Nothing." With a loud, rumbling laugh, Jehan clapped his shoulder. "Nothing at all, brother."

Grudgingly, Han retreated and prepared to heed his first mate’s advice, telling himself he should be relieved to have his ship back to himself and his mind free of Luke’s distracting presence.

Back in his narrow cabin, he got out the scrap of polished metal that mirrored a blurry scowl on his face and sat in the open door as he shaved off the rough stubble of several days, listening to the scrape of metal against his skin. Growing a beard meant inviting lice along with a constant itch, and he liked keeping his chin shaved clean, no matter how Jehan ribbed him about it. Once he’d changed into a white linen shirt and the good black tunic, Han felt his temper settle. Perhaps he’d spend the night in the Guild House where beds were soft and comfortable, and countless traders would be stopping over to swap news from every corner of the world.

By the time he passed the gate, evening had lowered across the streets, and unsteady firelight leaked from open doorways. City smells engulfed him like fogs rolling off the harbor, the tart sting of leather-tanning and wool-dyes mingling with the stench of fetid dunghills and rotting wood. Rats skittered in shadow packs around the grain stores. Han walked to the quarters where the wealthy merchants had their houses built in stone, picking a tavern with an ochre-washed facade. The wine they served warmed him pleasantly from inside. _Jehan’s right_ , he thought, _and I should be giving thanks we made it here fast and safe_.

With nightfall, more patrons came ambling in, and food smells clogged thickly in the air. Han loosened his shirt’s collar, but there was no help for it, after days out at sea, the low roof and the press of bodies made him feel hot and cornered. Unless it was the wine rising to his head too fast. The scent of warm pies and stew should be fetching an appetite to his stomach, but instead a clenching pressure sat there like he’d swallowed a stone. He was getting into the kind of mood that some years ago might have ended in a good number of bloody noses.

Pushing past the throng by the door, Han made a fast exit. Outside, the night air that brushed his face was slightly cooler. He paused for a moment, thinking, _no wind_.

The notion of another delay quickened his pace to long, angry strides. He was still walking without purpose or direction when the sharp rhythm of hoofbeats rang out through the curving street behind him. Han stepped back against the nearest wall in thoughtless reflex. From the sound of it, those were war-horses carrying fully armed men who generally expected people to move out of their path or suffer the consequences.

In a few more moments, the riders turned the corner in a half-canter, doubtlessly heading out on some urgent errand at this time of night. Han counted six of them as they passed him in single file, stray light catching on the dyed wool of their cloaks and silvery mail. They were all wearing the colors of Avignon, just like the cellarer’s escort, but that company had taken to the road instantly. Supplies at the papal court were most likely running low.

When the riders had swept past, Han turned and saw them head towards the northern gate. That made sense, if they’d been summoned back to Avignon, but the thought slid through his mind with disquiet like a chill morning breeze.

Over many miles, the road to Avignon ran parallel to the route Luke and Ben would be taking, and an encounter with the pope’s men might mean trouble for them. Well, they’d hear the horsemen on the road long before they came into sight, Han assured himself. There’d be plenty of time for them to take cover somewhere.

He turned his steps back in the direction of the harbor, but suspicion crept up on him, crawling icily along his backbone. What if someone had watched the two knights leave the city and reported them? What if those riders were setting out in pursuit?

Han let his breath go with a muttered curse. Old Ben had planted this kind of worry in his head, but he knew at once that the thought wouldn’t leave him, plunge himself into diversions as he might. It gnawed through all the reasonable arguments he’d piled up and burst on him with an image like a thunderclap.

Two men left butchered by the roadside while the sun dried the blood on their skin, and he felt again the texture of Luke’s mouth against his own, rough silk with a faint taste of the sea.

Han clenched his hands against the sick feeling that laced through his gut. They’d loan him a horse at the Guild House, he knew; and if not, with the payment in florins he’d received today, he could easily afford buying a horse. Catching up with chainmail-burdened travelers on foot couldn’t take too long either. Right, and he must be losing his head. Han cursed himself viciously. He owed those ragged Templars nothing at all ― in fact, they owed him. But he still couldn’t shake the sense of warning that touched clammy fingers to the back of his neck.

* * *

The moon had risen high when Han bribed the guards to let him pass the northern gate so long after sundown. For a small deposit of silver, the Guild had loaned him a horse, an agile gray courser used to carrying messengers across country. He should be able to overtake the pope’s men, Han thought while he spurred the horse along; they could hardly gallop all the way, not in the heavy armor they wore.

The road climbed a first line of hills and dipped into uneven terrain, but the Luberon Mountains were still miles away, their rugged outline a vague shadow against the nightsky. The blue-gray shapes of olive trees blurred into pale limestone crags as the courser broke into a gallop across the stony road. Han swallowed huge lungfuls of cool air and let the horse race along while his body adjusted to the different rhythms of riding. Shouldn’t be long now until he caught sight of the mounted company. Once he’d gotten past them, he could start looking for Luke and Ben. Perhaps the two knights had turned off the road already, but the country was cleaved and difficult in these parts, and hostile to their need for hurry.

A thin metallic clang cut into Han’s thoughts. Up ahead, the shadows of a tangled copse fell across the road where it ascended a rocky slope. Now that the wind had dropped, sounds carried across a fair distance in the night, and a moment later, Han caught muffled shouts that mingled with the neighing of a horse. All taken together, the implications of a fight were unmistakable, and he didn’t like it one bit. Perhaps the pope’s troop had run into outlaws, he tried to convince himself, but anticipation loosened a swift chill like arrows into his blood.

Giving the courser its head, Han reached down the side of the saddle. Only monks and pilgrims traveled open country unarmed, so before leaving the city, he’d returned to the ship for his crossbow. The clang and clash of steel grew louder under the canopy of trees. While his horse dropped into a trot, Han pulled the crossbow free and looked around. It was just as he’d expected. His throat went dry.

The six horsemen had come up on Luke and Ben and pursued them into the underbrush. Moonlight fell in pale shards through the foliage, reflecting off swinging blades. The pope’s men lashed at their quarry from horseback, but the low, gnarled trees hampered their large horses, and the two Templars defended themselves with incredible ease. As he watched them weave back and forth between the remaining riders, Han could tell they’d merely played when they’d dueled for the crew’s entertainment. Still, they wouldn’t be able to hold off their attackers much longer.

He swallowed another curse. He’d never expected to get himself in trouble with a whole group of trained soldiers, but there was no way he could back off now. Absorbed in their disorganized attack, the horsemen hadn’t noticed him yet. And there was a reason why even armed knights feared the crossbow. Snapped off a string drawn back by an iron catch, the steel-tipped bolts pierced mail and metal plating as smoothly as a knife would cut through cheese.

Han set a bolt against the taut string, took aim, and felled one of them before a second spotted him in the dark, just as his companion slid out of the saddle. Surprise and uncertainty halted the man, and before he could yell a warning, Han got the crossbow ready again.

He let another bolt fly and tugged the reins sharply, just in time to see a rider charge towards Ben who’d been caught with his back to a tree. Luke leaped forward and brought his blade up in a flashing arc. The rider howled out as the blade bit into his sword arm. His horse reared in fright and when it plunged forward again, lost its footing among the twisted roots. Both went crashing to the ground between Ben and Luke, while the second riderless stallion turned a crazed circle amidst the trees.

Han spurred the courser into the middle of the melee. The trick was to use the confusion fast and get out of range before the horsemen could recover. From the shadow-mesh, Luke pivoted towards him, wide-eyed, his face pale, the blade he’d brought up in reflex lowering again.

"Get up behind me!" Han called, reaching a hand down to him. They were clear for the moment, but Luke hesitated.

"Go!" Ben shouted while he blocked another blow aimed at his head, then added something in Latin that broke the younger man’s reluctance.

Gripping Han’s outstretched hand, Luke set a foot into the stirrup and let himself be pulled up. Under his added weight, the courser stepped back and forth uneasily, but the instant the horse steadied, Han brought it around. They couldn’t hope to ride too far like this, but if he’d counted right, only a single man was left free to pursue. With three of them dead or injured, two would have to stay if they didn’t want to risk the old man’s escape. They could make it.

"Ben!" he heard Luke’s shout from close behind him, but the rest was Latin again, the language of clergymen he’d never bothered to try picking up.

Though hoofbeats quickened behind them as they struck the road again, Han’s confidence flared high. The courser went downslope in a dogged canter. An angry shout trailed them, overlaying the clatter of hooves on the rock that drew steadily closer. Han let the man catch up a little more before he reined his mount back briskly. Caught by surprise, the rider barreled past at unchecked speed. And Luke had his sword out at just the right moment.

Even delivered with the flat side of his blade, the blow was enough to dislodge their pursuer. His body made a loud thud on the hard ground while his horse stormed off down the road.

"We’re clear!" Han yelled against the wind. Relief took him like a breaker crashing into a rocky shore.

Now that they were out of danger, he could hear the blood roar in his ears and felt lightheaded like he’d downed a full jug of wine in one swig. Luke had thrown one arm around his waist, his fingers digging into Han’s tunic.

For the while that they rode like this, turning off northward at the first crossroads, Han said nothing. Elation surged in him, the same sense of wild triumph that he got from sailing the _Falcon_ safely through a storm front, only there were different shadings in it that came from the pressure of Luke’s body against his back. He could feel the knit iron links of his mailshirt, and sometimes an exhaled breath brushed the back of his neck. Letting the courser slow down to a trot, Han steered it towards a wooded ridge.

"We’ve changed direction so often, they’ll never find us now," he said. After the long silence, his voice sounded strange to him, or maybe it was the way he talked, easing back into an outlaw’s skin like an old garment.

If they caught him, he’d hang for killing at least one of the pope’s men, but there was no blood on his clothes, and in the dark, nobody could have seen enough to recognize his face. If anyone asked him questions on his return to Marseilles, he’d fabricate a story about visiting distant kin and sail off free.

Luke shifted behind him. "Do you know," he started. "The picture we make... it’s the emblem of our Order. Two poor knights on a horse."

"I’m not a knight," Han retorted with only half his mind.

"No."

It came out bitten off as if Luke had finally been struck by the full weight of truth. Han could guess he was thinking about the old man. They’d reached the eaves of the wood where warm air lingered under the trees, thickened by the smells of cedar and wild laurel. With a pat of the tired courser’s neck, Han pulled the horse to a stop.

"What will they do with Ben?" he asked in casual tones, wary of Luke’s reaction. A diffuse grayness filtered through the trees on his left. Daybreak wasn’t far off.

Luke dismounted quickly. "They’ll take him before the papal inquisitor in Avignon."

"For a confession," Han guessed. "Is that what they want?"

"He’ll never confess!" Luke wheeled back.

The pale half-light showed the taut set of his jaw and the leather satchel he carried strapped over his shoulder. Ben must have handed it over before the fight, reckoning that Luke’s chances of escape were much higher than his own.

"You’re not planning to go after him, are you?" Han asked slowly.

"I promised Ben to take these letters to Mas Deu." Anger covered the helpless tone only for a moment, then Luke’s hand moved through an empty gesture. "I... Forgive me," he said in a drained voice, naked grief on his face. "I should thank you for what you’ve done."

Han swung out of the saddle and laid a hand on his shoulder, careful to keep the touch brief and undemanding. "All for the heavenly reward," he said in a light drawl. "Try to rest now. You’ve still got a long journey ahead of you."

They spread their cloaks on the ground and lay down side by side as the day brightened. Though Luke had closed his eyes, Han could tell he wasn’t asleep, stretched out rigid on his back as he was.

When slim bands of sunlight slid across the ground, Luke gave up the pretense. "I’d better go," he said, gathering his cloak into a bundle with quick movements. "I must reach Roussillon before they send more soldiers after me."

"Luke, wait!" For a moment, Han fully expected him to bolt straight for the open road. "Ever been in these parts before?"

"No." Luke cast a distracted glance around the underbrush and shrugged. "But I know which direction Roussillon lies, and I can ask people on the road."

Han eyed him skeptically while he saddled the courser. So perhaps Luke was tough enough to survive days and nights alone in the wilderness, but he’d hardly fight off mounted pursuit all by himself. "You can have my horse," Han said, the words just leaping to his mouth, unconsidered.

A passing smile lit on Luke’s face. "Thank you, but I’ll be easier to track when I’m riding. I prefer to walk."

"Well, have it your way," Han snapped, but Luke took another step towards him and placed a hand on his chest.

It was inevitable, mystifying, and it happened so fast that Han could barely taste the short kiss laid against his lips.

"Thank you, _mon amis_ ," Luke repeated.

As there was nothing left to say, Han climbed into the saddle and lifted the reins, his heart in his throat. Luke watched him quietly.

"Be careful," Han said down from the courser’s back. He’d done what he could.

_Now put him out of your head_ , he commanded himself as he nudged the horse’s sides. But by the time he reached Marseilles, he’d lost another battle against himself and knew for a fact that his body no longer took orders from him.

* * *

Instead of roaming the taverns again, Han spent the following evening at the Guild House. The floor of the big hall was strewn with fresh rushes, and servants walked up and down the long tables, pouring spiced wine for the guests. Burning wicks swam in earthen cups filled with oil, giving off a light far steadier than candles. Han sat staring into the blue core of a flame for a long time, letting it burn away the strange emptiness that clawed up inside him.

Over supper, he exchanged only a few words with his neighbor at the table, a merchant from Venice by the lilt in his voice. He was richly dressed in colorful silk, but so were many others among the company, and rings glittered from their fingers. They were a mirror of his own future, Han thought, if his streak of good fortune held. Give and take a few years, he’d sprawl before the fireplace trading complacent looks with his compeers, or discuss the price increase on pepper while the gout ate at his bones.

On the far side of the room, a _trobador_ picked up his instrument and bowed deeply as if to a congregation of lords. Some of the prosperous merchants made a serious effort to practice courtly manners and habits, like they expected the high-borns to accept them as equals sooner or later. _That’ll be the day_ , Han thought with another quick stir of resentment.

The _trobador_ paced leisurely as he sang in plaintive Provençal, of snow-white skin, _blanc coma neus_ , blond hair, and eyes like those of a hawk back from the hunt.

Han took a long swallow of the cooling wine and heard Luke’s voice again. _Mon amis_. Friend, lover. It was only a memory, a desire without hold in his life, but it threatened to take root in his mind.

The _trobador_ plucked a few notes from the lute-strings, and a different tune formed, low and mellow like a dark wine from Aragon. When the man started to sing again, the melody caught like steel hooks in Han’s gut.

_...ni muer ni viu ni no guaris, ni mal no’m_  
_sent, e si l’ai gran..._  
_...neither dead nor alive nor will I be cured,_  
_though I don’t feel my malady, I have plenty of it..._

He thought of Tristan and Iseult and the poisoned wine and cursed the unrest simmering in his blood, but it was no use. When the song ended, the hot, stifling tightness in his chest got bad enough to squeeze at his heart.

_Don’t be a fool_ , he told himself irascibly, but part of his mind flashed to the hungry delight in Luke’s eyes when he’d listened to one wild tale after another or stormed him with questions. _How could this happen to me? ___

__According to some doctors, there was a perfectly sensible explanation. A fine gas went up from the liver and emanated through the eyes, giving them vision. Beautiful sights could inflame it and send it back heated and brilliant, blinding the foremost part of the brain with desire. It didn’t seem so unlikely now._ _

__Han looked up and waved the singer across to his end of the table. "Tell me, what does this word mean, _lameir_?" he asked._ _

__The _trobador_ cocked his head. "Surely a man like you understands Norman."_ _

__"It’s a word for the sea," Han said impatiently._ _

__"Yes. And it also means bitter... and love." Amusement hovered in the corners of the man’s mouth. "It’s what Iseult said when―"_ _

__"I _know_ that," Han stopped him. He pulled a silver penny from his purse and flipped it over into the man’s upturned palm on a leap of breath that quickened his whole body. That he’d been wrong about the riddle didn’t compare to the mistake he’d made this morning. Or the mistake he intended to commit at sunrise._ _

____

* * *

Han left the city again with dawn. He’d bought the gray courser and wore proper traveling clothes this time, a leather tunic and leggings that were smooth in the saddle. A fool’s dress, according to Jehan.

The big man had gritted his teeth with worry, but he’d known better than to argue when Han told him to set sail for Bruges without him, whenever the winds allowed. _With a lull like this, I’ll reach Flanders long before you do. I’ll meet you there_.

At their parting, Jehan had embraced him with full force, not caring if he cracked a rib. _Don’t worry, Jehan, I’ll live to regret this_.

It took only three days until the first regrets ambushed him.

Han looked around while he let the horse drink from a rivulet that snaked down between the ravines. The Luberon’s southern slopes had been sunny and gentle, overgrown with downy oaks and cypresses, the smell of rosemary everywhere. Confident that he’d catch up with Luke before the mountain pass, Han had urged his horse through a quick climb, but when they descended the steep northern flanks the next day, there was still no sign of Luke. He couldn’t have walked so far in so short a time, Han thought now. Roussillon was a mere day’s journey from here, maybe less. But what if Luke had changed his mind and turned off west to Avignon? What if he’d been captured meanwhile?

Han glanced across the valley, at the next line of mountains, damning the wasted time. It was not knowing that made him restless and ill-tempered, and he remembered again why he’d always resented tramping across country. Out at sea, every horizon was clear and free, but in jumbled terrain like this, a man could drop from sight far too easily.

By the time the sun dipped towards the west, Han led the courser up a winding path into the foothills and began looking for a place to spend the night. Harsh ochre cliffs surrounded him, shading from ebullient gold to red, like pieces of the setting sun had dropped from the sky to form this landscape. Ochre dust was commonly used as a pigment, but it felt strange to be walking within a single color for hours. Trees grew sparsely between the wind-bitten crags and pillars, and the one quarry he passed looked as if it had been deserted for years. A little while later, he discovered the remains of fallen hovels and huts on the edge of a cedar grove. Through the treetops showed the slate roof of a stone structure.

The building turned out to be a chapel with a steep roof and small, round windows, the best kind of shelter for the night. When Han tethered the courser, he heard the unmistakable squeal of a winch and the rattle of wood on stone. Perhaps a priest had stayed behind when the quarrymen left, but it didn’t seem likely. Keeping his steps soft and one hand on the hilt of his dagger, Han rounded the building. What he saw leaped from his eyes straight into his blood, like a squall-line over the sea.

In a sun-dappled opening between the trees, Luke bent over a well to retrieve the bucket. With his bare feet and the loose tunic he wore, he could have been a local farmhand. Water sloshed over the bucket’s rim when he set it down, and every movement ceased.

_He knows I’m here_ , Han thought with an odd sense of alarm.

Luke turned, not startled at all, and a smile came from his eyes more than his mouth.

"I’ve solved your riddle," Han said hoarsely. For a moment he thought that Luke would cross the distance in a run, but maybe it was just the burst of speed inside himself, that sudden pounding in his throat. " _Lameir_ means―"

"Yes," Luke stopped him.

The smile faltered, and though he measured his stride as he walked across, Han imagined that his breathing came just as rushed as his own. Without another word, he pulled Luke against his chest, holding on hard with all the impatience amassed over the leagues they’d traveled. When Luke’s arms circled his waist with gentle pressure, Han gave in to a surge of gladness, hot and bright like a sudden stab of sunlight. He bowed his head, the pale hair brushing his mouth, and a thin strand caught between his lips.

"Thought I’d never find you," he murmured without letting go. "How’d you get here so fast?"

"I walked at night as well." There was a change in Luke’s tone, and Han saw it in his face a moment later, when the younger man stepped out of his embrace.

"Any trouble?"

"I reached Roussillon this morning..." Luke dismissed it with a cutting gesture. "The preceptory has been taken over by the Hospitallers, but the brother Ben hoped to see no longer lives with them."

"Where is he now?"

"Nobody knows." A bleak expression swept across Luke’s features, swift as the shadow of a hunting bird. Before Han could say anything, he turned briskly. "You’ve traveled a far distance. Sit down. You must be tired."

With a shrug, Han lowered himself on a flat stone beneath a cedar’s fanning branches.

Luke carried the bucket over, handed him a wooden cup, and waited until Han had drained it. "Now take off your boots."

"What for?"

"It’s a custom we had at the Templar house where I grew up."

Han wasn’t thinking. He removed his boots without another question, his senses lulled by the cedar’s spicy scent, the buzz of insects in the still air, and the glints of receding daylight like fractured copper on the ground. Nothing mattered except having reached this place like some kind of sanctuary. Until Luke crouched before him and gripped his ankles to set his feet into the bucket with a firm splash.

"What are you doing?" he blurted, starting up, but Luke held him in place with both hands.

"I told you, it’s a custom," he said patiently.

Incredulous and uncomfortable, Han settled back. This was turning things upside down, and he couldn’t make any sense of it. He couldn’t drag his eyes away either when Luke’s hands moved over and around his feet in the cool water. He’d never been so embarrassed by a touch.

"It’s done to practice humility and to honor guests," Luke explained as if to set him at ease. His fingers pressed against the sole of Han’s foot as he lifted it to the bucket’s rim.

"Never heard of that before," Han muttered. "It’s a servant thing."

"Not for me."

Luke had strong, calloused hands, but his fingers traced Han’s instep and ankle light as a feather, a touch smoothed by the water that trickled across his wet skin. With that same, searching gentleness, Luke’s hand slid halfway up his calf. Han swallowed at the thread of heat weaving through him, a balance shifting, unsettled by such simple contact. He imagined those fingers traveling up the inside of his thigh, and it held his body in a spell, each drop of water a hot pinprick that marked his skin. He felt coarse and clumsy. If Luke had been a peasant or a sailor, they would have grabbed each other in a playful wrestle, their hands quick and working in unison.

When Luke motioned his feet onto a piece of cloth and rubbed them dry, deftly, as if he’d done this sort of thing his whole life, Han wondered what he’d had in mind, coming here. Luke gave him a carefree, open smile, but it was impossible to touch him now. Perhaps he hadn’t solved the riddle after all.

 

With nightfall, they went into the chapel. Bats were nesting under its roof and some took off through the windows in jumbled, soundless flight. Under a slab behind the altar, Luke found some candle stumps and lit one with a scrap of flint. There was nothing else left besides the altar stone and a carved figure of Christ on his cross, paint flaking off his wooden body.

"What will you do now?" Han asked, distributing his provisions across the flagstones between them. He’d brought bread, dried meat and onions. Like a boy still growing, Luke ate hungrily.

"I’m going to Avignon," he said between bites. "They’ll keep Ben imprisoned trying to get his confession. Perhaps I’ll be able to see him and―"

" _See him_?" Han cut in. "They’ll lock you in the same cell. You’ll be doing their work for them!"

"Nobody knows me," Luke said reasonably. "I sold my mail coat to a blacksmith. Do I look that much like a nobleman to you?"

_Not now_ , Han thought. With his bare arms and legs and that sparkle in his eyes, he looked like temptation made flesh and bone.

"It can be done," Luke continued resolutely. "They’ll let family visit the prisoners, and maybe Ben can tell me where I should take those letters."

At least he wasn’t planning to break the old man out of his prison, Han thought warily, although that might change once he saw Ben. Not much of a chance that Luke had ever been inside a gaol before. And if those Templar leaders in Paris could be freed by written letters, it would be nothing short of a miracle. But for now, Han kept his doubts to himself.

When the candle faded and winked, they settled down on their cloaks. Across the inside of Han’s closed lids danced the final flickers of the candle-flame, but the warmth of Luke’s body next to him was much closer than that and more disturbing. He sucked in a quick breath when he felt Luke’s hand settle over his own, loosely interlacing their fingers. Every muscle in his body tensed up, ready to jump, but he forced himself to stay quiet. This was how Luke wanted to touch him. He was at a loss to guess what might follow, but from their joined hands spread warmth like a promise, guiding him down a velvet glide into sleep.

* * *

Han woke at his usual time, just before dawn, but Luke no longer lay beside him. Head bowed, his sword beside him, he knelt by the altar like a sculpture shaped from blue-veined marble and pale gold. From the eastern window, a drawn-out oval of grayness fell across the cracked flagstones and molded softly around his slender frame. Over a long time, Han watched for movement through lowered lashes, but there was none.

The blanched light had washed around Luke, laying a bright seam against the altar’s damaged plinth, when he finally rose. His hand moved to the cross, cupped the broken foot of the Son of God and traced the splintered wood with a tenderness due to living skin.

"He is a God of passion," Luke said.

When he turned, Han knew he’d been caught staring, and most likely Luke had been aware of it for a while. He directed his eyes to the wooden figure, the painted blood dried in strands across starkly carved ribs, and tried to picture the dead Christ walking over the sea like firm ground.

The image faltered when Luke crouched down beside him. Startled all over by the touch of a hand to his jaw, Han levered up on his elbows and found Luke’s eyes searching him at close range.

"How do you do this to me?" Luke asked. "I owe you my life already, isn’t that enough?"

_I’m not doing anything_ , Han wanted to protest, but he wondered how much longer he could keep it up. He cleared his throat. "You’re not a monk."

"I doubt I could be that." There was a touch of regret in Luke’s smile as he settled back on the floor. "And I didn’t grow up in a monastery either," he continued. "Some Templars are married, and when my mother died, the Order gave me to a childless couple. There was little pleasure in that marriage."

Han pulled up his shoulders in a cramped shrug. High-borns weren’t free to marry as they liked, there were always dowries and allegiances to consider. No matter how the _trobadors_ sang of a man’s love growing arduous over a distance, married couples matched like cogwheels at the best of times, grinding out a life between bad harvests and household routines.

"I would have been given a wife in the same way," Luke said, "whether she wanted me or not."

"And that’s why you joined the Order?" Han asked incredulously.

"That’s just part of it." Luke waved a hand around the enclosure of gray stone and diluted light. "This," he continued, "is nothing like it at all, but the first time I walked into a cathedral, it took my breath away. I thought I had come into another world. All that colored light falling through windows so vast, it’s as if the roof is held up by light and air alone, and you think you can almost feel the touch of God on your soul."

"If that’s what you want to call it," Han said dubiously, snatching at the threads of sentiments that probably didn’t compare.

Reminiscence hazed the blue eyes as Luke rubbed his cheek against one shoulder. "Ben calls it a vocation, but I think what I wanted the most was to know more of the feeling I had that day... to see the secret light in all things. What this world is meant to become."

Han thought it over, but he still couldn’t see the point of that chastity business and living with one foot in a monastery and the other on battle grounds.

"I met Ben," Luke went on, "and he taught me how to meditate and made me read philosophy, and that again is another world. So much knowledge and clarity that makes sense of things, even if they look like a jumble on the surface."

Han glanced up at the rafters where the bats hung upside down in clusters. This answer was easier to figure through. He’d always liked calculating as much as drawing designs, and he’d learned in Paris that there were arts called geometry and arithmetic that explored the riddles of construction. With time and money, he might have enjoyed studying those things a little longer.

"But why d’you have to take vows to do any of it?" he asked. Vows and rules like any laws worked best through terror, though he found it hard to relate that to Luke’s frank and fearless ways. "Why for life?" Han added. "There’s so much else to see, and you’re cutting it off right at the start."

Luke pulled up his knees and gave him a long, considering look. "This is what they told me," he said. "When you wish to be on this side of the ocean, you’ll be beyond it, and the converse; when you wish to sleep, you’ll have to stay awake and go hungry when you wish to eat." He listened after the words for another moment. "It’s a way of clearing the inner senses, so that you’re open to a different way of knowing. It never seemed like a restriction to me..."

He trailed off, and in his silence Han could hear an unspoken _until now_ that left its brooding trace in the air between them.

"Why aren’t you married?" Luke asked suddenly.

"Try explaining the sea to a woman," Han gave his usual answer, a short-cut through the convolutions of instinct and experience. _Or anyone_ , he added in his mind.

Luke accepted his reply without questions and tipped his head at the broad streak of daylight across the flagstones. "Time to leave. Are you coming with me?"

There was a touch of force to his casualness.

"Into Avignon and out by the same route," Han said, placing careful emphasis on _out_. All other plans could wait until they’d left the city gates safely behind.

They both got to their feet at once, half colliding in the rash movement that left them entangled in a chance embrace, breath escaping into laughter. When Luke’s hands settled firmly on his waist, Han drew him close against the length of his body, shoulders, chest and hips pressing into him, fitting easily. His hand covered the small of Luke’s back and through the fading cloth of his tunic traced the taut, bunched muscles. Luke’s breath brushed his mouth, halfway between another soft laugh and a gasp, before he leaned up and brought their lips together.

Han closed his eyes, absorbing the gentle movement of Luke’s mouth on his own and felt the tip of Luke’s tongue caress the inside of his lower lip. It gave him a thrill like a day full of sunlight and slicing winds. He wanted to haul Luke closer and press their groins together, but he knew it was going to end in another instant. He pulled back. A high color suffused Luke’s face.

"Is that what it’s all about," Han asked him, "to be on the wrong side of the ocean on purpose? Because you’ve promised that you’ll never have what you want?"

"I don’t even know that I _can_ have what I want," Luke said between quick, shallow breaths.

This time, it all made sense to Han. This was the feeling he got thinking about a journey across uncharted seas, whether or not he could count on finding a port somewhere on the other side. He couldn’t let it go any more than Luke could release his beliefs in a kingdom of air and knowledge.

"Someday you’ll find out," Han said shortly before he turned to the door.

Comprehension didn’t reach very far into the fretful ache that formed out of moments like this. Maybe it was the kind of longing which the Arabs called _al’ishk_ , a sickness. Saracens or not, they were right in their judgement for sure.

 

The weather changed as they rode out through the lower end of the valley. Clouds hung over the steep ochre cliffs like strands of fleece caught in a fuller’s comb, and the brazen colors were muted to dull hues of rust. Han reckoned they’d strike the road to Avignon again the next day and started telling Luke about the city he’d visited once before, when he’d sailed the _Falcon_ up the Rhône.

From recollection, he described a broad stream busy with barges and boats of every kind, and a town seething with visitors even before the pope took up residence in the bishop’s palace. Before long, Luke interrupted him with questions, but Han made him talk about Cyprus in turn and the struggle between King Henry and the lords of Lusignan.

"It went on as long as I can remember," Luke said. "The king’s brother stirred a revolt when I’d just been knighted, but the fighting never really stopped. They were always planning another crusade. Ben kept telling me that on a clear day, you could see Palestine from the towers of Limassol, but I never did."

Throughout the day, erratic gusts of wind herded the clouds until the sky was covered in a thick blanket, patched together from every shade of gray, but the air close to the ground remained warm, filled with stagnant smells of honeysuckle and sage and the hum of wild bees.

They took turns riding the courser and easily covered twenty miles before nightfall. In the colorless gloom of dusk, they found a deserted hut built from limestone slabs without the use of mortar, the vaulted roof so low that Han had to keep his head ducked between his shoulders.

"Will we get there tomorrow?" Luke asked.

"Or the morning after."

Han took a wooden cup from his provisions bag and filled it with the cider he’d bought in a village on the way, made from crab apples and honey. When Luke had emptied the cup and held it out, Han leaned over to kiss the taste off his mouth, fetching a smile with the quick maneuver.

"That’s enough," he said in a mock growl. "Now go to sleep."

Shortly after he’d eased down on his side, he felt Luke move up against him, one arm flung loosely across his waist. Han’s breath caught, and he told himself that it was the strangeness more than anything, besetting his body like a full-moon spell, but there was no helping his reaction.

* * *

They spent another day on the road under sullen skies, plodding along with the growing trail of peasants and craftsmen carting their wares to the market in Avignon. Within sight of the city’s outer districts, they slept in an unused barn and set out again at first light. The air smelled of rain, but instead of breaking, the clouds just grew heavier with ragged, charcoal seams.

When Luke guided the courser back to the road of baked and furrowed mud, the strain of self-control was visible in every step. He’d grown quiet throughout the past day, and Han could tell that his thoughts ran ahead to Avignon. Truth to tell, he worried about the old man’s fate himself.

"What happens once the inquisition’s over?" he asked in terse, factual tones. "If Ben refuses to confess, what then?"

There’d been so many Templars, he thought, too many to burn them all. Neither the king of France nor the pope could dare to antagonize such a vast number of noble families.

"Some have been fined and imprisoned over many years," Luke answered, "but eventually, most are sent into monasteries for the rest of their lives."

If they survived imprisonment. Memory opened up in Han’s mind like a pit, dank with rot, a pitch darkness encased in stone at the end of everything.

"Sometimes they summon witnesses for the trial," Luke continued, "but not for simple members of the Order, I think. Ben never held any office... I could testify for him, if it’s necessary. I’ve known him almost ten years."

Han swallowed his disbelief. "Sounds like it might be just a matter of time ‘til they let him go."

"There will be justice," Luke said in a tone he’d never used before, iron with a fine edge of rage. His glance searched the road ahead of them where carts and travelers on foot kicked up dust. "Take my sword," he added abruptly, unbuckling his belt. "You’ll be the knight, and I’ll pass as your squire."

"Some knight," Han muttered. But the way they were dressed, the disguise would fool everyone. If anything, his own array looked more genteel than Luke’s simple tunic and breeches. The sword’s hilt was decorated with small white stones, set into the pommel in the shape of a cross, and engraved letters dulled and blurred by long years of use.

"It belonged to my father," Luke told him before he could ask. "Ben kept it for me while I grew up."

Before long, they were passing the suburbs where thatched houses rubbed shoulders with wooden sheds and hovels. The stench that went up from dunghills and open latrines mingled with the strong smell of a fish market drifting over from the other side of town. Strange to approach a city this big from the land, Han reflected as he rode the courser through a gate between sturdy barbicans. He recalled the view he’d got sailing up the Rhône, of the belfry and the bishop’s palace looming not far from the river banks. Both places had stoutly built undercrofts suitable for holding prisoners.

Within the city walls, the rubbish-littered streets meandered in the usual disarray, all of them hemmed in by stone houses, stables, and stalls crammed into narrow spaces in between. The crush of bodies grew so bad that Han got ready to dismount, but Luke stopped him with a hand on the shaft of his boot. He walked close beside the courser, his head lowered, though Han could tell that he studied their surroundings discreetly. And they had good reasons to be watchful.

The city was teeming with men-at-arms and mounted knights urging their high-strung warsteeds through the roving crowds. Han started considering escape routes, just in case they ran into the group who’d pursued Luke and Ben on the road. Hard to imagine that anyone could fail to recognize Luke, mail coat and sword or not.

When they reached the point where the street opened into the market place, Han’s recollection ran into a dead end, and he stopped the horse on the corner, oddly disquieted. Where the squat palace had been, there was now a vast building site, swarming with masons and carpenters. Clouds of stone dust hung over the workshops and scaffolding like a fog that swathed massive towers fit for a royal castle. Their height dwarfed the governor’s belfry, and instead of windows, their upper stories squinted out over the town with narrow embrasures. While the outer ramparts remained unfinished, the inner complex with its halls and sprawling wings looked busy like another city. It was unusual to leave the fortifications for last, but perhaps they’d started the construction works atop the razed walls of the old palace to provide a residence for the pope as soon as possible.

Han slid out of the saddle. "What’s going on here?" he asked in a lowered voice, not really expecting an answer.

"The pope is building a fortress for himself." Luke shook his head, his mouth compressed into a tight line. "To think that when he was elected, everyone said he’d be nothing but the king’s pawn."

"Sure looks like they were wrong," Han returned under his breath. The new palace was a statement of defiance raised in stone, if he’d ever seen one.

"They might have guessed when he chose his name. He calls himself Palestine the First, Emperor of Jerusalem."

Han snorted. "If he wants to rule Jerusalem, why won’t he support your Order? Who’s supposed to defend the Holyland for him?"

Luke turned away. "There was hope that he’d protect us from the king’s ambition at first," he answered in flat, dry tones, "but not for long. His inquisitors are just as eager to burn and condemn so that the Church can claim the Order’s lands and possessions."

It always came down to that, Han thought. Given half a chance, power and greed coupled frantically. "Come on, let’s find something to eat," he suggested with forced sanguinity, "then we’ll find out where they’re keeping the prisoners."

Taciturn and subdued, Luke walked next to him as they strolled around the food stalls. When he’d bought fresh bread and pears and a slab of butter, wrapped in a wet rag to keep it from melting, Han turned off into a narrow side street that wound down towards the river. He passed Luke one of the pears.

"Eat," he said, "you’ve had no breakfast."

For another moment, Luke stared right through him, then he shook himself free of whatever had captured his mind. "Yes, I... Thank you."

Han watched him suck at the juicy pulp and wanted to place his mouth against the muscles slanting in Luke’s throat. He’d never spent so much time on imagined touches before.

The commotion set in just as Luke offered him the pear’s other half. Over the hubbub of the market rose shouts and the harsh clatter of hooves as if a whole army had swerved from the palace. From where he stood, all Han could make out was the dull gleam of helmets and flashes of colorful cloaks. Shortly after, people driven away from the market place started coming down the street in flocks and swept them along towards the riverside.

"Any idea what this is all about?" Han asked and snatched at Luke’s sleeve before they could be separated. "It’s not some kind of religious feast, is it?"

Luke shook his head. "Could be a bishop or the pope himself, setting out on a journey," he suggested without conviction.

Uneasiness began groping around Han’s insides. A fevered kind of anticipation had seized the people around him, and he climbed back into the saddle for a better look at the spectacle. Hundreds milled restlessly in a wet field by the river. Traders, monks in black habits, local people carrying their children, dust-covered laborers from the building site ― the town had to be near depleted by now. Some fifty yards on his right, the mounted processsion passed from the city by a different route. There had to be a powerful lord among them to bring such an entourage of horsemen and richly attired knights, but Han couldn’t guess where they were headed. Until he saw the wooden cart.

Armed _serjeants_ surrounded it, almost shielding the prisoner from view instead of allowing the townfolk a hearty demonstration of rage and contempt. Tied and shackled, the man huddled against the cart’s braced side in a grimy shirt.

Han leaned down from the courser. "It’s an execution," he told Luke. "Must be someone important, if they’re making such a big show of it."

The crowd around them moved and swayed again to open a passage for the procession, and Han could see that up ahead, a large pile of wood had been stacked around a straight timber pole. This time, he got a clear view of the convict as well.

Bruises and dark swellings disfigured his face, and so much dried blood clotted in his hair and beard that it looked brown more than white, but he recognized Ben all the same. The old man sat slumped forward, his head nodding in time with the laboring wheels.

"What?" came Luke’s urgent question before Han had a chance to steel back the traces of shock from his expression. "What is it?"

He cleared his throat. "It’s a burning."

And he knew for a fact that only relapsed sinners against the rule of the Church got burned. It had been seven days since Ben’s capture. Too short a time to wrench a confession from him, to pass formal judgement and give him a chance to repent or revoke his admission of guilt.

"Can you see who it is?" Luke asked.

The man who stood on his other side spared Han the answer. "The former Visitor of the Templars," he answered conversationally. "He was imprisoned several years ago and released upon his confession, but he recently fell back into his old errors." The man wore an unembroidered robe of fine cloth, his precise articulation bearing the distinct mark of education. He had to be a scribe or notary at the papal court to know so much, Han reflected uncomfortably.

"The Visitor?" Luke echoed. Han could see instant objections spring to his mouth, but Luke clamped down on them with a troubled look.

Excitement rippled the crowd like a wheat field when the old man was dragged off the cart and pushed to the center of the pyre. A pair of bailiffs stripped him to his loincloth, exposing the sores and bruises that covered his entire torso and stood out starkly against his pale skin. One arm hung loosely at his side, at an odd angle, as if disjointed or broken.

At this moment, there was just one thought in Han’s mind, that he somehow had to keep Luke from seeing this.

He leaned down again to clasp Luke’s shoulder. "Stay close to me," he said sharply, "no matter what happens."

"The Visitor of our Order is Hugues de Pairaud," Luke answered as if he hadn’t heard. "He’s been a prisoner in Paris for years."

"I don’t care." Han craned his neck to survey the crowd once more. "Let’s get out of here. Now."

But people were still surging down from the city, and a sinking feeling twisted his stomach. If they got pushed any closer to the front, Luke would be able to see everything for himself.

While the mounted company had drawn to the side to watch from horseback, armed _serjeants_ on foot kept the crowd at a distance from the pyre, and the two bailiffs flanked it on either side. Blazing torches raised high, they looked like participants in a stage-play, waiting for the starting signal.

Following the direction of their gaze, Han noticed a prominent figure among the knights. Even astride his large horse the man looked like a giant and instead of opulent colors wore a black cloak over sculpted armor. A helmet of blackened steel concealed his face. On the stallion beside him sat a thin man wrapped from head to foot in dark purple robes that fell in elegant folds across the saddle and down over the back of his horse. Although a hood shadowed his features, his stooped posture indicated old age. It was this man, Han realized with irrational disquiet, who commanded everyone’s attention.

From the folds of a wide sleeve, a shriveled hand rose and gestured negligently. Both bailiffs tossed their torches into the pile of logs, covered with layers of rushes and twigs that caught fire instantly. Murmurs went up: dread, cheer, and speculation mingling with the first threads of black smoke that curled up from the bottom of the pyre.

Han dismounted just as the crowd pressed forward again, and a fist-fight erupted somewhere close. Thrown off balance when someone jostled him from behind, he staggered against Luke. A gap opened in the crowd before them. With one hand, Han twisted the courser’s reins around his wrist; with the other, he grabbed for Luke’s shoulder to reel him back ― by a moment too late. Anger lanced hot as a curse into his gut. Luke had caught sight of the pyre and stared at it wide-eyed, every hint of color draining from his face.

When a blinding burst of flame shot up through the stacked logs, the bruised body jerked inside the ropes that held him upright against the pole. Ben’s head lifted slowly.

It was the first reaction he showed, and more than enough to release all the pent-up expectation. Cries, jeers and whistles erupted all around them, a group of monks began mumbling Latin invocations, but the scream that tore free of Luke’s throat cut through the cacophony like a knife.

"No!" Luke screamed again and lurched forward.

Chilled to the quick, Han let go of the courser’s reins and clamped both arms around Luke’s torso, yanking him backward with desperate force. "There’s nothing you can do!" he hissed into Luke’s ear. "You hear me? Nothing will stop this now!"

After a moment’s confusion, Luke struggled furiously against his hold, guttural, panicked sounds wrenching from the back of his throat as the flames danced up faster. His elbow drove hard into Han’s stomach.

"Stop it!" Han gasped. "We can’t go against a whole army!"

Rage pressed up from his stomach with giddy intensity, and he banded his arms tighter around Luke’s chest. Luke’s first scream had turned a few heads, but now nobody took note of them anymore. Flames licked from the logs under Ben’s feet and singed his legs. That was when he started to chant.

Barely a murmur pierced the general noise at first, but a hush swept over the crowd until they could all hear him pray and sing in Latin, his voice cracking with the effort. " _Placebo Domino in regione vivorum_..."

All resistance left Luke in an instant, and he went rigid in Han’s arms, his chest rising and falling with harsh, panting breaths. "I shall please the Lord in the Land of the Living," he echoed in a dry whisper. "It’s the vespers for the dead...."

"Don’t look, pray for him," Han said close by his ear, "that’s all you can do."

Luke sagged back against him with a whimper, but he didn’t close his eyes. "Oh, God, let it rain..."

But the clouds wouldn’t break, and no rainfall could put out a fire this large fast enough to save the old man. Han dragged his eyes away from the stake for a glance at the mounted spectators. Like his knights and his flamboyantly dressed companions, the hooded rider had turned his head toward the conflagration. Only the black knight looked out across the crowd. Han fought a sudden, superstitious feeling that he was gazing their way.

By now, the flames had risen so high they formed a translucent curtain around Ben that made a pale ghost of his face. "... _circumdederunt me dolores mortis, et pericula inferni invenerunt me_..."

His singing faltered into awful croaks and gasps.

_Soon_ , Han thought. The more smoke entered the old man’s lungs, the sooner it would suffocate him and spare him the agony of burning alive. Once the fire’s brief furor had consumed skin, flesh and the lighter bones, only the thick oak pole and some brittle bones would remain, sticking out from a heap of ash.

Han loosened his hold fractionally and wrapped one hand around Luke’s cold, clutching fist as he watched over his shoulder. Sickened and breathless with grief more than anger, he held Luke close against himself. Ben’s hair burned off in moments, sparks swirling on the updraft, yet no breeze scattered the smoke that rose in glutinous billows from the pyre, and it fanned out into a dark canopy over the heads of the congregation. With it, the stench settled over them and seeped into their clothing. The crowd began to break up. The form that showed vaguely through the wavering screen of flames resembled a bundle of black sticks more than a human body.

"Let’s go," Han said unsteadily, but Luke didn’t respond, and his face could have been carved from solid ice.

The courser snorted nervously as the gathering dissolved into chaotic drifts. When Han reached for the reins, his glance fell on the mounted party by the stake again. Trailed by his colorful entourage, the hooded rider had turned his horse towards the city gate behind the palace. Townspeople thronged in his path, and while foot soldiers pushed them aside, the rider’s pale hands fluttered through sketchy gestures of blessing.

With a start, Han realized that this shrunken man had to be Palestine, self-proclaimed ruler of a future Empire. At the same time he noticed that the black knight, followed only by a few men-at-arms, was advancing straight towards them at a leisurely pace.

On impulse, Han stopped a mason with a face as gray as his dust-caked tunic. Everyone who worked at the building site had to know the lords residing in Avignon, he figured. "Can you tell me who that is?" Han asked, pointing over his shoulder. "I saw him next to the pope."

"That’s because he’s the king’s delegate," the mason answered, flicking a furtive glance in the black knight’s direction. "His name is Dragon d’Aurillac, Count of Auvergne."

"Dragon?" Han mouthed. "What kind of name is that?"

The mason leaned closer. "It’s the way he looks. People say the Saracens cut off his nose and lips, and that’s why he never shows his face."

Luke had followed their exchange with the blank expression of someone from a far country.

"Come on," Han said to him, "we’d better leave now."

The clouds chose that moment to burst at last. What started as a fine, mocking drizzle became a savage downpour within moments. Large drops splattered off Han’s leather tunic and the courser’s saddle. He wrapped an arm around Luke’s shoulders and steered him towards the southwestern gate.

While Luke started walking mechanically, his face was set in stone, and no thought or feeling reflected in his eyes. Han ground his teeth as they trudged back up into town, cursing the rain that should have started an hour ago. He’d witnessed uglier deaths than this one, and he’d still been shaken up badly to see the old man burned to death, for no apparent crime. For Luke, it could easily turn out the kind of terror that planted frenzy in a man’s soul.

What now? Han wiped the back of his hand over his wet forehead. The torrential rain transformed every street into running mud and dripped from his hair into his eyes. Though he didn’t seem to notice, Luke’s tunic was already drenched and clung to his skin like ragged laundry hanging from a tree. If they left the city right away, he’d come down with a fever before nightfall. Han slowed his pace to look around. Despite the shrouding gloom, noon was still hours away. Stopping off at a tavern would do them no good, not with Luke in a state like this and the common room most likely buzzing with talk about the burning. All the same, they needed to find someplace dry and warm.

Everywhere in town, people were dismantling stalls and hurrying for shelter. Plagued by an odd sense of alarm, Han tossed a quick glance over his shoulder each time hoofbeats rang through the steady rush of the rain. When they reached the cloth-dyers’ street that ran towards the eastern curtain wall, he started knocking on doors to ask if anyone rented out rooms. The narrow channel that skirted the street was swelled with rainwater, a gray flood washing away the residue of carmine and blue dyes from its raised bank. The house at the end of the street belonged to a shoemaker’s widow who no longer had any use for the large bed-chamber.

Han took the courser into an unused shed and unsaddled it quickly before carrying their bags and bundles inside. When he shut the door with his shoulder, Luke stood at the center of the room, exactly where he’d left him, and stared at nothing. There wasn’t much to look at anyway, a low, rickety bed with a lumpy straw mattress in one corner and a hearth with firewood stacked up next to it.

_Good enough_ , Han thought while the widow brought in a bucket of water and sheets so they could wash. When she’d left, he unwrapped their cloaks, about the only dry garments they’d got left, and spread them before the fireplace.

"Why don’t you sit down?" he said to Luke. Perhaps plowing along the usual rote would ease his way towards living with a death he couldn’t have stopped.

Not waiting for a response, Han went to bolt the two doors and fixed the wooden shutter over the window. The hearth was well-swept, and he had a fire going in moments, a wreath of small flames licking up through bundled rushes. Momentarily relieved, Han unlaced his leather tunic and pulled it off. Although there were moist patches all over his shirt, he left it to dry on his skin.

"That’s better," he muttered, rubbing his hands together. But the moment he turned around, he knew he deserved to be flogged for starting a fire, of all things.

Luke sank to his knees in front of the hearth, like his legs were suddenly giving out under him. He looked thin in his soggy tunic, dripping hair plastered in strands against his brow and temples, and the building fire reflected in his eyes.

_No help for it, he needs to get dry_ , Han thought angrily. When he put a hand to Luke’s shoulder, he could feel him shake, but the shivers weren’t coming in waves of cold. It felt as if a fine tremor had started at the core of him and seized every muscle into a cramp.

There was no resistance when Han tugged the soaked tunic over his head and wrapped a sheet around Luke’s torso to rub him dry. The fabric was threadbare and soft after years of washing and patching, but Luke’s skin felt clammy and lifeless like parchment drawn over frosted stone.

"Not helping much, is it?" Han said, more to make a noise that would cover the avid crackling of the fire.

He put a pan of water on the hearth and dipped a corner of the sheet into it as soon as it had warmed sufficiently, then used it to bathe Luke’s neck and arms. Giving attention to every inch of bared skin, he ran his hands over the smooth chest and taut stomach where the muscles formed ridges of tension. With sordid humor, Han recalled how restless he’d grown wanting to get his hands on this body. Right now, a quick romp for relief was the last thing on his mind, but at least his ministrations showed some effect after a while.

Hesitant color had returned to Luke’s face and a quick pulse ran under his skin when Han dried him off the second time, though he kept gazing ahead in listless surrender. The look of him stirred Han’s temper into a sizzle.

"Talk to me," he said, helpless anger rising into his voice as he moved to block Luke’s view of the fire. "Grieve for Ben, damn the bastards who put him to the stake, but don’t pretend you’re already dead!"

Luke’s mouth opened, but all that came was a sound like a dry sob. Swept by unreasoning frustration, Han seized him roughly by the shoulders.

"Don’t do this, damn you!" he shouted, his face mere inches from Luke’s.

Nothing had prepared him for Luke’s reaction. Closed off in defensive apathy one instant, he lunged the next, and Han found himself knocked flat on his back, too startled for the moment to fight off the furious attack. Luke was on top of him, his hands closing with frantic strength around Han’s throat.

"You let them kill him!" he rasped in a voice like splintered wood.

Han reached for his wrists to pull Luke’s hands away and felt the heat of the fire against the side of his face.

"Couldn’t let them... take _you_ ," he grated against the pressure of strong fingers digging into his windpipe. If he brought his knee up straight into Luke’s groin, he could throw him off easily. Instead, Han let himself go limp.

For a moment longer, Luke stared at him with mindless desperation, then he lowered his face against Han’s shoulder, his hands falling off as his whole body slumped.

"Forgive me," he whispered after a long time.

"It’s nothing," Han mouthed and turned his face to brush his lips against the drying blond strands.

Grief passed through Luke’s body like a storm and shook him in fitful bursts while his hands clutched at Han’s shoulders. Shifting away from the hearth as much as he could, Han wrapped both arms around the slender back. He felt the weight of Luke’s body on him and the violent tremors that ebbed into shaky breaths until all of it seemed to echo in his own flesh and bones. A strange hurt began beating insistently against the inside of his chest, like a caged bird, and picked up pace the longer he held Luke like this. Later, he couldn’t really tell at what point the vicious grip Luke kept on his shoulders softened into a close embrace.

They’d tangled themselves into a knot on the heap of cloaks and sheets and discarded clothing. Through his half-dried shirt Han could feel the heat of Luke’s skin and the pounding heartbeat that kicked at his ribs. The sensation suffused him with a searing kind of gratitude that pivoted into something less clear when a hand moved through his hair for a slow, confused caress. Without letting go, Luke slid to his side and looked at him with dry, hazy eyes.

"You―" he murmured and broke off as if the source of words had suddenly dried out.

Han had no thought to spare for an answer. All it took was turning his head to brush their mouths together, just letting the breath pass between open lips, and it nearly sent his head into a spin. Perhaps it was possible to get drunk on grief and passion. Right now, every sensation ran hot and strong through him like wine, the pressure of Luke’s body against him turning to chills on his skin. When Luke’s hand wandered up the side of his neck, Han took it and raised it to his mouth. This close, he could see the shiver that lifted the fine, pale hair on Luke’s arm as he brushed his lips across each fingertip and lingered briefly at the softer triangle between thumb and forefinger. It was nothing like the things he’d done to Luke when his imagination went through capricious leaps and bounds. It was a spell taking hold of him, guiding his hands.

While his fingers sculpted the clean lines of collarbone, shoulder, and chest, Han leaned over to press his mouth against Luke’s throat. Swift pulse throbbed under his lips, a liquid shadow in the firelight, while his hands made sweeping journeys across Luke’s torso, reminding him that he was whole in the warmth of his skin and the strength of his muscles. Heat gathered under Han’s palms and crawled up the inside of his arms when he took hold of Luke’s hips, but he’d grown so absorbed in touching him that he never really noticed he’d gone hard as a rock until Luke moved suddenly and his thigh rubbed Han’s groin. He gasped in sheer surprise. For a moment, he wanted to fall on Luke and release himself into this, the image of it like a flash leaping from his gut more than his mind, but it passed after a breath and another.

He trailed his mouth down the center of Luke’s chest and kissed his flat nipples until they tightened against his lips and teeth and the skin around them puckered into the shape of small stars. Luke’s breath came in gasps when Han raised his head to look at him. A look of dreamy lust had washed over Luke’s face and glazed his eyes, taking him beyond comprehension. Han cupped his jaw and watched the long, thick lashes sweep down like the wings of a kestrel in flight.

"You’ve got the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen," he said and felt like a fool until Luke curved a hand around his neck and pulled him into a breathless, open-mouthed kiss.

Han’s gut tightened at the flicker of Luke’s tongue against his lip, and when it darted inside briefly, a sharp thrill stabbed through him. He clasped Luke’s hands and bent over him to play and pursue until their tongues engaged in challenge and retreat and soft moans came from Luke’s throat. When Han’s fingers resumed their journey down his chest and sides, Luke pressed into his hands. He’d been rigid as a board at first, now he couldn’t seem to stop moving anymore, his body following unbroken rhythms as he slid closer and pressed himself against Han’s side.

Han got his arm under Luke’s waist and held him firmly as he placed his palm against the flat stomach. Muscles fluttered in quick reaction all the way down Luke’s belly. His breeches were still moist from the rain, but he was erect inside when Han unfastened them and pushed the cloth down over his lean hips. Though he encircled the hard shaft gently, Luke tensed at once, small, rough sounds escaping his throat while Han’s fingers started to move up and down ― once, twice, and Luke clung to him, his body taut like a bowstring, his throat arched, but only an explosive gasp came when his seed spilled in hot bursts over Han’s fingers. Then he lay completely still, panting breaths merging with a soft crackling from the fireplace and restless taps of rain against the shutter. Han gathered up the wet corner of the sheet to clean them both. By the time he eased back down, Luke had curled up on his side, content and completely relaxed.

Han tried to make himself comfortable beside him. The need for release cramped like an ache in his body, but it subsided after a time, and worse was the feeling he got watching Luke sleep while he wrestled with the discordant memories of this day. His eyes burned as if stung by smoke. He didn’t know what the hell was coming over him.

 

For some time, Han dozed fitfully, his mind slipping back and forth between fragmented recollection and fatigue like a rolling gray fog. When he got restless again and opened his eyes, the fire had burned down to a smoldering mound of cinders and charcoal. Luke crouched beside it, the sheet wrapped loosely around himself, and carefully piled fresh logs into the hearth. He was recovering if he could do this, Han thought. Bright tongues bounced up, licking at the firewood.

While he studied the graceful curve of Luke’s bowed neck, Han wondered if he knew what they’d done. If he did, surely he’d insist on calling it a sin, made worse by the closeness of Ben’s death. Then again, Luke had been so beside himself with grief that nothing much could possibly get through to his conscious mind. Maybe he’d recall things only in the way of a strange dream, and in the long run, that would turn out all for the better. Han tried to brace himself for a taxing exercise in self-control.

Pushing up, he grabbed for their provisions with just the amount of noise that would warn Luke he was awake. The fair head turned in another moment.

"Feel better?" Han stretched out his legs in front of him and pretended not to notice that Luke watched him quietly while he cut off thick slices of bread with his eating knife.

When he unwrapped the butter, Luke moved over and lightly touched his knee. "You should take your clothes off."

Perplexed, Han glanced down at his hopelessly crumpled shirt. Luke was still naked under that sheet, and in the blink of an eye the thought of undressing in front of him charged Han’s mind with heated fantasies, no matter how innocent Luke’s suggestion had been.

"In a while," he said as casually as he could, holding out a chunk of bread. "Here, sit down, you’ve got to eat something."

Without another word, Luke settled on his cloak and began to eat obediently. _Like I made that a condition for undressing_ , Han thought, amused and exasperated. The fire built and blazed again, sending ripples of warmth through the room. He was about to stash their provisions when Luke shifted to his side and slipped a hand under the open collar of Han’s shirt.

"Take your clothes off," he repeated with a quick smile. "I want to look at you."

This time, the impulse was unmistakable. Han felt an instant jolt inside his breeches and swallowed to get the words out. "Watch it," he warned him, "I’ll want that sheet off you too."

Luke cocked his head. "I’m not a monk, remember?" His fingers moved under Han’s shirt and slid through the trail of dark hair over his breastbone.

"Aye, but what about that sodomy thing?"

The volatile spark of amusement faltered. "I’m for the stake anyway," Luke answered soberly. "They can only burn me once." He withdrew his hand and pulled up his knees, his eyes growing cloudy with thought. "The Order no longer exists," he said slowly, and the words left hard tracks around his mouth. "I think that releases me from every vow I have taken."

"It meant more to you than that."

"Yes." After a short pause, Luke raised a hand to brush his thumb over Han’s mouth. "It meant looking for the truth that holds everything together and wanting something I couldn’t name, something that belongs to another world. This feels like a part of it."

Whatever that meant, his light touch made clear sense to Han’s pulse that sped into a saunter, and he couldn’t wait another moment. He pulled the shirt over his head, then climbed to his feet to strip off his breeches, aware that his cock angled stiffly away from his body and that Luke’s eyes were raking him with unabashed curiosity.

"Come here," Han said huskily.

The sheet slid off with a rustle as Luke rose. Before he could say a word, Han pulled their naked bodies together and took Luke’s mouth, running his tongue over his lips and teeth, diving and invading as he grabbed a handful of the fair hair that slid like silk between his fingers. Perhaps they’d both gone a little crazy over the past day’s events; now they were completely matched in thoughtless urgency, pushing closer, hands roaming everywhere. Han arched his back into the seductive slide of Luke’s fingers down his sides and flanks and gasped against his mouth as he felt the solid heat of Luke’s cock press against his thigh. Muscles rippled all the way down his spine, drawing tighter.

Luke was breathing hard when he broke the kiss. "Tell me what I should do. I want to return the pleasure."

Han cupped his face in both hands, taking his time to watch the bitter heat of confusion and sorrow merge into passion that set its glow into Luke’s eyes. There was just one thing that made sense. "Take me," he said. "You know how?"

Luke licked at his lips, but the hesitation that showed on his face didn’t carry the mark of ignorance. With sarcastic amusement, Han thought that he owed this knowledge to the priests who’d explained it all to Luke during confession.

"Is that what you want?" he asked.

Han liked the look that came into his eyes, a feral kind of glitter that reminded him of the day he’d watched Luke fence aboard his ship. He grinned. "If you’re up to it."

Luke cradled his hips with a soft, throaty laugh and stroked his thumbs down to the back of Han’s thighs with light pressure, his mouth fastening on Han’s throat. "Let me try," he murmured against pulsating skin. "I want to make you feel what I felt."

Han gave himself a warning as pleasure reeled through his body and rocked his hips against Luke’s belly. He was too close already. He pulled Luke down to their makeshift bedding on the floor.

"We’ll use the butter," he said between unsteady breaths, reaching for the stacked provisions. "It’s going to be easier that way. Put some of it inside me."

Luke’s fingers dug hard into his shoulder when Han started spreading the warmed grease on him with slow, teasing strokes. The firelight streaked sparkles across the sweat on Luke’s skin and consumed the contours of his body into flame. Before turning around, Han leaned across and kissed the hot, dry lips. The moment folded around them, brittle and irrevocable like the breaking of a seal when their mouths parted.

Han raised himself on his hands and knees and tried to keep still, difficult though that was when Luke’s hands played between his legs, preparing and fondling him with curious relish.

"Now," he said impatiently.

His hands clutched into fists as Luke shoved forward and sank in slowly to the hilt. Chafing discomfort flared briefly into pain, reminding him how long it had been, before he could stop his muscles from tightening up. But instead of thrusting, Luke held them close together, both hands gripped tight around Han’s hips. In the stretching stillness of several moments, Han got his breath back, the knot of sensations unraveling into claiming pleasure. Luke moved his hips slowly, writhing and pressing against him, and when he finally pulled back to drive in deeper, Han could feel the shock run up from his groin, fanning around his ribcage to invade his bloodstream like a white flood.

He moved into the cadence of Luke’s thrusts, his heart keeping time with the dark beats of a drum while Luke’s hands made their path from his knees to his breast. Piercing thrills sent his pulse into a frantic race, and he pushed back, quickening the pace until Luke’s arms locked around his chest so hard he could barely breathe.

"Wait..." Luke’s mouth brushed the softer skin behind his jaw.

One of his hands slid down to capture Han’s cock, and when he moved again in a loose, fluid rhythm, Han lost every sense of the way his own body was put together, of his hands and feet and the half-lit room around them. Luke fell forward with a muted cry, his frantic movements driving them deeper into pleasure, until Han could feel the throbbing ache deep within turn inside out, spilling over, and a hoarse shout wrenched from his throat.

The keen pleasure ebbed slowly from his body, leaving shivers that clung to his skin in patches like silvered shadows. He’d collapsed on the sheets, but Luke was still sprawled out on top of him, his ragged breaths tingling between Han’s shoulder-blades. It took a while until they could move again.

When Han finally turned over, he saw the thin track of wetness down the side of Luke’s jaw. "What’s this?" he murmured.

Luke shook his head and leaned across him, his hair falling in a curtain over Han’s brow. "Thank you," the words formed light as a breath against Han’s skin. "I had no notion..."

Pulling the sheet up around them, he stretched out close beside Han. The pattering of the rain had ceased, and for a while Han’s mind was wiped blank as he watched shadowplay across the blackened roof timbers. But Luke didn’t drift off into sleep this time.

"What’re you going to do now?" Han asked eventually.

The answer came at once, a decision already made. "I must go on to Paris to deliver those letters." Luke hesitated. "After that, I don’t know."

"What about your father’s family?" Han made himself ask. "Didn’t he leave any lands you could claim for yourself?"

"Not that I know. Ben never talked much about him."

"I can travel with you as far as Paris," Han offered. "The _Falcon_ ’s going to wait for me at the Flemish coast." _You could come along_ , he almost added. Perhaps by now Luke would agree that no writ in ink or stone could liberate the Templars who’d been the king’s prisoners for years, but he was still a nobleman with the kind of honor that fractured under the pressure of broken words, and surely promises made to a dead man added to the bruising weight.

Han wasn’t surprised when he turned his head and found Luke’s features clouded by memory. "Thinking of Ben?"

Luke nodded.

The burning seemed remote now, like one of the murals that covered the inner walls of every big church in glowing colors, white robes afloat among painted flames and the golden spheres that encircled the heads of saints.

"Don’t martyrs go straight to heaven?" Han asked awkwardly.

"Yes... And we’re taught that it’s wrong to grieve so much over someone’s death. We shall all live again." Head lifting, Luke touched Han’s throat softly and ran his thumb along the line of his jaw. "We’ll have bodies like crystal, lit by a fire of many colors, and perfect senses so that we’ll be more aware of sight, sound and touch... everything."

_That’s how you make me feel_ , Han thought, oddly struck by the notion. _Maybe that’s what it is_. He cradled Luke against his side, and they remained like that, the sheet molding around them like another skin.

For some time, Han felt so filled with life that falling asleep seemed impossible, but sleep came eventually and took him with the swift surety of a midnight tide.

 

It was a small noise that woke him, uncomfortably close like a scrape against the wall. Could be the horse in its unfamiliar stable, Han told himself, but it made him restless all the same. A faint chill crept in under the door with a scent like coal smoke, the precursor of autumnal frosts. Daylight couldn’t be too far off.

When he sat up, Luke’s arm slid off his chest, but Luke just turned over, burrowing into the shadowed folds of sleep. Han moved quietly in the near-complete dark, gathering their bags, pulling on his boots. Until he heard a woman’s voice on the other side of the door, a furtive mutter that broke off just as suddenly. The widow had no reason to be up at this hour, and if she was, she’d hardly prattle with her neighbors before first light.

Uneasiness began stealing over Han, and he crouched down to touch Luke’s bare shoulder, startled for a moment by the warmth of his skin under the sheet.

"What is it?" There wasn’t a trace of drowsiness in Luke’s voice.

"I don’t know." Han muttered, sitting back to fasten his tunic, "but I’m thinking we should get out of here... the sooner, the better."

"You’re right," Luke said after a brief pause, abrupt pressure in his voice.

While he got dressed, Han rolled up their cloaks and stuffed the wadded sheet into the water bucket, more to ward off the mounting disquiet than anything else.

"Ready," Luke’s voice laced through the darkness.

"Then we’re off."

Unlatching the door with unusual caution, Han walked out first and almost winced at the creaking of old wood that tore through the gloom. He got as far as two steps across the narrow yard between the house and the shed when a metallic rattle fired alarm into every part of his body. Luke’s sword dead weight at his hip, he spun through a half-turn, but the cold bite of steel against his throat brought him to a winded stop.

"Don’t move," a bodiless voice warned him.

Han turned his head slowly, enraged pulse pounding under the pressure of a naked blade. Motionless in the open door, Luke was surrounded by armed _serjeants_.

* * *

The sour, musty reek slapped him like a soggy blanket. As he scrambled to his feet, Han tried to shake the sweep of dizziness, but the dark air took his breath and sucked him down a steep well of recollection. _I won’t get out_ , he thought, panicked like a half-grown boy. _Not this time_.

Bales of decomposing straw rustled as Luke staggered up. They’d been pushed down a ladder into this rathole on the lowest level of the papal palace, colliding into each other midway when the butt of a lance connected with Han’s spine.

Luke’s fingers closed hard around his upper arm. "Are you all right?"

"Sure," Han answered, releasing a shaky breath as quietly as he could. _God, the smell of this place_...

He made an effort to steer his mind away from it. A shaft of dusty gray daylight fell in through a heavy iron grate that covered the opening in the cell’s roof. A constant rustle came from every corner like the walls themselves were breathing it out.

"There’s no one else here." Luke sent a searching glance around the cell without releasing his arm.

"That’s a mercy," Han said dryly. His eyes were adjusting to the dense gloom, and from boundless dark emerged barriers of roughly hewn stone. It looked like the dungeon had been built when the foundations were laid, a part of the old palace, perhaps the only part kept for convenience.

"I wonder how they could find us," Luke said in a lowered voice.

"Not all that hard to guess." Han’s stomach tightened around the several dozen curses he’d already swallowed. "Someone noticed you yesterday. Remember the tall black knight? I thought he was looking your way..."

Luke’s hand dropped off his arm. "But how would he know who I am? I’ve never seen the man before."

"The troop that captured Ben could have given him a fairly precise description, I guess," Han returned uncertainly. Something was gnawing at him, jagged fragments of impressions and half-formed thoughts blowing through his head without fitting together. He kicked at the rotting straw and paced to the opposite wall.

Where the slanting daylight fell across its foot, intersecting scratch marks stood out against gray stone, some of them carved deep with a desperate accuracy. Between crisscrossing strokes, Han could make out the shape of a crucifix, Arabic numbers in groups, and the rough sketch of a human head, surrounded by radial lines like a wreath of rays or arrows.

"Tell me what’s on your mind."

When Han turned back, the iron grating cast its shadow pattern across Luke’s face and chest.

"They sure took a lot of trouble to keep things quiet," he said slowly. "Why’d they come for us in the middle of the night? Everyone was indoors, asleep, when they took us here. There’s something going on..."

"Yes, but what?"

"What about those letters?" Han asked on impulse. "Ever got to read them?"

"They were sealed."

"Maybe they’re more important than you know." And perhaps they contained more than testimonies and pledges recorded to liberate the prisoners in Paris. It was too late to check anyway.

"You’ve been hunted ever since we reached Marseilles," Han continued. "Someone’s dead set on capturing you, and I can’t think they’re going rabid over every single Templar like that."

"Maybe not." Luke pulled up his shoulders. "I don’t understand it myself."

"Remember the man we talked to yesterday? He called Ben the ― what? ― the Visitor of the Order."

"But he wasn’t!" Luke said sharply.

_I hesitate to burden him with such a responsibility_ , Han heard the old man’s voice while lazy waves sloshed against the _Falcon_ ’s hull. "Perhaps Ben didn’t tell you everything," he suggested. "Perhaps he was trying to protect you..."

Incredulous anger overtook the puzzlement on Luke’s face, but his voice dropped to a near-whisper. "How can you say that?"

"Just wondering, that’s all." Han started pacing again. In all likelihood, none of it mattered anymore. Worrying at riddles and the machinations of scheming clerics was hardly the best way to spend the time waiting for a death sentence. A cold soreness crept up his spine, and he wrapped both arms around his torso, rubbing at stiff muscles.

"You’ve been imprisoned before," Luke’s voice intruded from close behind.

"Aye." Han’s jaw set hard. Recollection threatened with a slippery slide like quicksand before he could pause to wonder how Luke had figured it out. "A long time ago. I’d pinched some bread and a knife, and they banged me up for something like a week." More like a lifetime choked with rancid darkness, the fever and the rats. The sickening latrine smell grew stronger again. "Then I got flogged and kicked out of town," he heard his own voice over the gap of years. "Must’ve been ten or twelve years old."

He could still see the crowd watching, a blur of grimy faces, shouts and laughter bubbling up through stained teeth.

Luke’s hand slid up his spine and came to rest between his shoulder-blades. "I’m sorry I got you into this," he said thickly.

"Sorry?" Han caught his hand as it balled tight and stroked his thumb across the back of Luke’s fingers, clumsy under the influence of anger and regret. "Hell, I should’ve gotten you out of town at once. If anything, it’s my fault."

Luke met his eyes with white-faced vehemence. "You’ve done more for me than anything I’d ever expected, and you’re..." He faltered, his glance lowering to Han’s mouth before it swerved aside. "Tell them who you are," he continued in hardened tones. "Convince them that you don’t know anything."

"Without a witness, that won’t be so easy," Han answered distractedly. "I don’t know anyone around town." He waved it aside. "The question is, how do we get _you_ out of this?"

"I don’t think that’s a possibility." Sudden calm sealed Luke’s expression into steely acceptance.

"There’s got to be a way," Han snapped against better knowledge. A thick wave of fury pushed through his veins, reducing his voice to gravel. He wanted to hold Luke, but he wasn’t sure he could stop at that, and most likely it would make things so much worse.

"It must be morning by now," Luke went on dispassionately, "and they’ll want to question me soon."

"Damn the bastards to the deep end of hell!" Restricted to impotent curses, Han felt like driving his fist through the nearest wall.

Perhaps Luke’s judges had the verdict already written out. There was nothing they could do to stop the proceedings.

 

They were sitting with their backs against the wall when footfalls overhead sent echoes bouncing through the enclosure.

The grate rumbled aside, and a man’s shaggy head momentarily blotted out the light. "On your feet, you!" he shouted with a wave at Han. "You’re wanted for a hearing."

Baffled, Han pushed up. Diffuse thoughts chased themselves through his head, not one of them gaining purchase. Above, the guard began sliding the ladder through the aperture.

"If you can get out of here, go!" Luke said urgently, one hand closing around Han’s wrist as he came to his feet. "You hear me? Don’t look back."

Han nodded. Easy to make such a promise when it wasn’t in his power to keep anyway. _Fat chance they’ll just let me walk_ , he thought. _Not after all that’s happened_.

"Good." Luke summoned a tight smile and watched him, unafraid, without concession. He said, "Han―"

The lower end of the ladder landed in the straw with a dulled thud. Han gripped him around the neck and drew a quick breath. "I love you."

There’d never been a need for those words in his life, and maybe it was pointless saying them now, but he could guess what they had coming. Without a word, Luke pulled him into a hard embrace and with the same uncompromising force pushed him back in another moment.

"Move!" the guard yelled from above.

Han reached for the ladder’s rungs and started to climb mechanically. Numbness seeped into his bones, and the fresh air he’d craved bit coldly into his lungs as they crossed the hall. Two _serjeants_ escorted him to a different building, new walls gleaming white in the brilliant light of morning that made his eyes water until the shadow of another doorway fell over them. They descended flat, sloping steps into a vaulted chamber where torches painted their fuzzy halos across the walls.

At the center of the room stood a balding man in a monk’s black habit, hands pushed into his sleeves while he contemplated burning coals in the fireplace. Warmth clogged in the air, but Han would have offered any bet that the hearth hadn’t been lit for the inquisitor’s comfort. From the corner of his eye, he saw a wooden scaffold much like a gallow tree, a skeletal shape in the shadows on the far side.

Easy to guess why they’d picked this room for questioning. Some people wilted at the mere notion of torture; interrogating them within sight of the instruments certainly sped up confessions. While his escort positioned themselves by the doorway, two bailiffs in plain leather tunics slouched by the fire. The monk was middle-aged and plump, not the sort given to starving his flesh to ease its passage into the next world.

"Sit down," he invited, pointing to a bench placed against the wall.

Han made an effort to swallow his anger. Complaints and demands would only add up as clear marks of guilt, and he told himself to take comfort from the fact they’d decided to question him first. Perhaps bad memories had swelled his fears, and they only wanted his testimony. If they let him off the hook, he’d be free to plot a rescue for Luke.

There was a scribe present, Han noticed as he lowered himself warily; a thin man poised over his desk, the quill resting askance across the back of his hand. The monk remained on his feet as he went through the formalities. Name, age, family, place of birth and baptism, profession.

"A sea-captain," he repeated thoughtfully when Han had answered those questions. "And how long have you served the Templars?"

"I don’t," Han said. "I never have. I just ferried two passengers from Naples to Marseilles, that’s all."

"How much did they pay you?"

That question threw him. "They didn’t," Han returned and almost bit his lip. It wasn’t a good start. "They were penniless," he plowed on, "and there was enough room aboard my ship, so I thought, why not. I’d no idea who they were at the time."

"Where is your ship now?" the monk inquired, his tone unrevealing, but his rational air made room for clear thinking.

"On her way to Flanders." He’d prepared for this and gave his reasons for traveling across country with due matter-of-factness. It was simple, every trader had to check out the big-town markets from time to time to gauge current demands and price increases. "I’m going back aboard once I’ve picked new cargo," Han finished.

The inquisitor gave him a placid look. "And have you learned anything of interest in the market yesterday?"

Han clenched his teeth. Damn the man, he was far too good at spotting the holes in his story. "I got sidetracked. If it hadn’t been for the burning―"

"You attended the execution out of curiosity, I presume," the monk suggested.

"I wouldn’t’ve gone at all. The crowd just pushed us along."

"You and your companion, a Templar knight from Cyprus, whose sword you carried," the other man resumed succinctly. "A number of witnesses saw you consort with him in a familiar fashion. Do you deny this?"

Han shook his head. "I felt sorry for him."

"What about the sword?"

There was no way out of this one, and Han struggled against the nasty feeling of being herded down a tapering path, fenced in on every side by the monk’s questions. "He asked me to keep it for him while we were in town."

"Because he intended to evade arrest."

_So hang me_ , Han thought.

"And you assisted him in this, did you not?"

"Yes," Han said sharply. "Look, I’ve no knowledge of these matters, and I’ve got no way to tell who’s guilty of what. For all I knew, he hadn’t committed any crime, and I felt sorry ‘cause he’s still so young. I’ve never been to Cyprus, never served the Templars, and that’s all I can tell you."

The silence grew heavy around him as the monk clasped his hands together and mulled this over. "I think not," he said finally, in that unchanging, pleasant voice. "We shall hear the truth from you yet."

When they fixed leather straps around his wrists and bound his hands tightly behind his back, Han narrowed his mind down to practical considerations. He’d not admitted anything yet, and all they wanted was the proven truth. In every legal quarrel, people would swear and counter-swear oaths as it suited them. Torture was simply a faster way of getting the truth out between the clash of contradicting claims. They might go at him for a day or two, he reckoned, and if he could tough it out, they’d start believing him.

The men who tied him and stripped off his soiled shirt went about their business with reassuring, scrupulous competence. This early in the investigation, they’d make sure not to cause any permanent damage or take the torture to the point where it crippled him and made him useless for anything except begging.

When they hooked him up to the pulley block under the vaulted roof, Han tensed, every muscle bracing for the coming assault ― he couldn’t help that reaction. A sharp tug jerked him off his feet, and a strident tear of pain twisted through his arms as they strung him up on the scaffold. Han screwed his eyes shut, each of his senses going to battle in the throbbing brown gloom behind his closed lids.

They left him dangling like this for a while, counting on the weight of his own body to turn against him and do all their work. Han could feel the strain burn from his wrists to his shoulders where the blunt ache pulsed in time with the torchlights. Like a slow tide, it crept down his chest and he focused on breathing around it, letting it pass on without resistance.

When he opened his eyes again, the monk waited several steps away and wore a stony look as if to guard against the unpleasantness of watching.

"My name is Guillaume de Paris, of the Dominican order," he said. "I will question you and, if it pleases the Lord, help to ease the burden of mortal sins on your soul. Do you understand?"

Han made the mistake to try a nod. His breath came in a hiss and he told himself, the less he moved, the better. "Yes," he managed. "I... understand."

"Say the _paternoster_ for me," Guillaume asked.

He’d not been to church in a long time and didn’t remember it very well, but he managed a fair imitation, mumbling over some of the Latin phrases.

With a satisfied nod, the monk picked up a sheet of parchment from the scribe’s high desk and wandered back to the scaffold. "A bitter thing, a lamentable thing, a detestable crime, a thing almost inhuman, set apart from all humanity," he read. "This is how King Philip the Fair addresses the sins of the Templars, and the Holy Father of all Christendom shares his horror that the Order of the Temple of Solomon has with its depravity crucified our Lord Christ Jesus yet again. His spirit is racked by anguish and his tired limbs decay, broken in strength by too much grief."

The words went through Han like a firebrand, and his body agreed to them so much that for a moment it grew difficult to figure what kind of response he should offer.

Was it true, Guillaume asked, that the Templars scorned the Sacred Sacraments and believed that Christ was only a man who’d suffered for his own crimes and therefore hadn’t risen from the dead either?

"Not that I know," Han said through clenched teeth. "I’ve met... only two of them."

From the memory lobe, an image sprang to the front of his brain, of foggy morning light that invaded the stone chapel and the gentleness of Luke’s hand on the foot of the painted crucifix.

They would do the same to Luke sooner or later, and for an instant the thought whetted every sensation to a cutting intensity until Han managed to blot it from mind. He couldn’t afford thinking about it.

The monk held the stiff parchment before his chest like a shield while he quoted the charges and condemnations.

"This is what many of them have confessed," he said, tapping the dense scribble of letters that covered the page. "Each time a reception is held, the new member of the Order is led to a secret place and asked to kiss the preceptor on the base of the spine, the back, and the navel..."

Han strained to listen through the rising buzz in his ears. Sweat formed on his face and chest.

"...and afterwards he is shown an image of Jesus Christ crucified and told to spit on it."

"I’ve never been at a... reception."

"Of course not," Guillaume said reasonably, "but perhaps you’ve heard of such things from those who witnessed them."

"I haven’t," Han answered with as much emphasis as he could muster. "All I know is, they’re made to promise... chastity. And poverty."

Guillaume’s eyebrows arched in disapproval. He probably had a point, Han thought, the Templars had been rich in demesnes and benefices, so perhaps they hadn’t been too serious about living as paupers ― but who’d expect that from high-borns anyway?

Annoyance wound into his thoughts the next moment, because the monk had tricked him into wanting to agree. No matter how many Templars had broken their own rules, he only had the time spent with Luke and Ben to go by, and he’d stick to that.

"Their interpretation of chastity is such," Guillaume said scathingly, "that it prohibits them from knowing women, but if any heat of nature urges them to incontinence, the Visitor gives them license to cool off with other brethren. They teach that no brother should deny himself to another and submit to this mutually. Have you witnessed any of this?"

"No," Han grated, as breathing grew more difficult by the moment. Fortunate that the monk didn’t think to ask about Luke and himself, but such a thing wouldn’t occur to him.

"It is this abomination which led to the fall of the kingdom of Jerusalem," Guillaume said, his face knit up with indignation. "It brought the wrath of God upon us when the Holy Land fell again into Saracen hands."

He proceeded to inquire about secret services held in the middle of the night and the Templars’ habit to girdle their loins as a sign of their heresy. While the questions grew more bizarre, Han listened to the hitching sounds of his own erratic breaths. Little by little, his attention slipped as the seething ache leached slowly from his shoulders and chest into every muscle until it gripped his insides in sickening pangs.

"A powerful noise resounds to God and the Holy Father who holds his place," Guillaume hollered, having worked himself into a state of righteous fury. "The weed can already be separated from the fruit, followed by the lifting and putting on the fire!"

There was no personal animosity in his glare, and Guillaume resorted to cool, rational tones when he read out the next question. His head swimming, Han repeated over and over that he had no knowledge of any of these things. He blinked sweat out of his eyes. With the ruddy glow of the fire and torture instruments distributed brazenly around the room, this place came close to the depictions of hell in the porches of almost every church he’d ever seen. No wonder the monks knew it so well.

"Were you aware," Guillaume asked, "that one of the two men who traveled with you used to hold the office of the Order’s Visitor, commander of the Templars’ possessions in the west?"

"For all I know, he was a simple knight," was what Han meant to answer, but his labored breaths severed the words, and Guillaume shook his head. With a look of aggrieved remonstration, he went to consult the documents on the scribe’s desk.

How long had it been going on anyway? Dizzy exhaustion coiled around Han’s mind and he started to drift whenever the pain was at low tide.

"Do you hear me?" Guillaume’s voice drowned in the roar of blood that filled his ears.

When he failed to answer in due time, the monk signaled impatiently. A winch yammered somewhere at Han’s back, laboring to pull him up higher. Before he could wonder what was coming, the ropes were loosened abruptly. He fell back into the weight of his own body, pain screaming through every limb, feet dangling within inches of the floor, and barely swallowed a yell.

"Is this the truth?" Guillaume asked.

"I never... served the Templars," Han rasped out. He had to keep saying this.

When they finally lowered him to stand on his own feet again, his knees buckled, and before he could catch himself, he fell on his shoulder, the shock of pain so blinding that it took all of his breath. He was curled up on the floor gasping for air like a dying fish washed ashore.

"We will speak of it again tomorrow," Guillaume announced.

After that, the guards dragged him to his feet and down a short hallway. An ironbound door slammed shut, committing him to the stony darkness of a narrow cell.

_You’ll get nothing from me tomorrow or any other day_ , was the last thought Han could form before the darkness rose swiftly and washed through his mind.

* * *

He lost track of time all too fast. Strung together by Guillaume’s endless litany of the same questions, one session ran into the next, but more than that it was the constant, burning soreness in his body that drove out his sense of day and night. He slept hunched over, head resting on his knees, his arms loose at his sides to spare his aching back, his shoulders swollen and tender to the lightest pressure.

To establish some measure of time, Han marked another day when they took him to the next round of interrogation, and each time he heard those lumbering footsteps invade the hall, he knew that Guillaume still didn’t believe him.

On the second day, they attached weights to his ankles that added momentum to his falls from the scaffold, and the violent jerks sent fire flashing from his toes to his bruised wrists. The pain grew into a shield around him that screened out everything except the questioning and the need to answer, a closed circle he couldn’t escape, and he realized that this was the whole point of torture. They’d drive you in on yourself until only the twitching knot of truth remained and could be plucked like a pearl from less durable stuff.

At night, they left him with a cup of water and a dry slice of horsebread. Though Han forced himself to chew slowly and stretch those miserable rations, hunger gnawed at his insides while he sat in the dark, repeating to himself what he knew and rephrasing his denial. All by himself, he could think of Luke too, without having to worry that it would twist his reasoning and wrench the wrong answers from him.

No one ever mentioned what had happened to Luke, and asking about him was sure to stir new suspicions, so Han held his tongue. Impossible that the pope had a second chamber fitted for tortures, he told himself. If they started to question Luke, he should be able to hear it from his cell. But all he ever caught was the sound of unfamiliar voices, giving orders or arguing over a game of dice, which had to mean they kept Luke locked away for the time being, leaving it to isolation, uncertainty and hunger to weaken his defenses.

_But once they’ve got whatever they want from me, they’ll start in on him_ , Han thought. One more reason to hold up as best he could, so they’d be obliged to let him go.

_Who’re you fooling?_ he sneered at himself. By the time his resistance finally forced his release, he’d be in no shape to plot a rescue, let alone act on such a plan.

On the fourth morning since he’d first been brought before the inquisitor, Guillaume wore a vexed expression, and his servants moved around snappier than usual, but they left Han no time to fathom the cause for their agitation. Instead of taking him back to the scaffold, they strapped him down on the triangular frame of the rack by his wrists and ankles. Someone had evidently decided that a more rigorous form of torture was in order.

At Guillaume’s signal, one of the burly men tugged the lever attached to the winch. Given a taste of the sharper, more brutal pain, Han gasped, his mouth dry as if he’d swallowed dirt.

"Now then," the monk started in crisp tones, but he flicked an anxious glance over at some spot behind the rack. "Let us consider the practice of idol worship. Surely you recall images or symbols of pagan gods?"

"Seen ‘em," Han returned on a short breath, hideously grateful he had a positive answer to offer for a change. The strain on his wrists and ankles lessened by a fraction.

"Ah. Shaped like a human head, perhaps?"

"Sometimes a head. Other times, it’s a whole figure."

"And where did you see this?"

"Villages. All over."

"What about the Templars?"

This time, Han knew better than to try shaking his head. "There were none of them. I’m talkin’ about... common people up and down the country."

The ropes tautened instantly, pulling him in different directions, and Han shouted something he couldn’t quite recall afterwards, though maybe he’d admitted there might have been a Templar preceptory somewhere near.

One of the bailiffs put a hand on his arm. "Almost through," he grumbled while Guillaume went for his parchments. "Only a couple more questions."

The dubious reassurance evaporated as soon as the monk started rambling about an ancient embalmed head with hollow, carbuncled eyes that glowed like the light of the sky. "The Templars adore such a head," Guillaume finished.

"Not that I know."

The winch squealed again. Han screwed his eyes shut and damned all priests who thought they could break another truth out of his body and do his soul a favor in the process. As if it haunted his own dreams, the monk conjured up the febrile picture of a demon shaped like a man, his lower part shaggy like a cat and the rest of him gleaming more brightly than the sun, and it gained reality as the words rolled through Han with a fitful throbbing pulse and the burning prickle of sweat on his chest until the next wave of pain urged him into drunken blackness.

When he looked up again, Han had to blink several times before his vision cleared. Guillaume had vanished like a bad smell on a breeze.

"Enough," said a new voice from somewhere at his back. "I am tired of watching these clumsy efforts, and I am tired of waiting."

Dark and resounding, the man’s voice filled the chamber and cast uneasiness across the guards’ faces. Booted steps circled the rack. Like a shadow grown solid, the tall black knight paused at its foot, cloaked and armored as if the torrid heat of this place couldn’t touch him, though torchlight painted bloodshot reflections across one side of his helmet.

"You will tell me all I wish to know, do you understand?" A gloved hand came to rest on Han’s tied ankle.

He clenched his teeth in anticipation. "I’ve answered every question."

With a sudden tug, the large hand twisted his ankle, and Han’s back arched in defense against the trenchant agony stabbing through his leg. He came damnably close to screaming this time.

"Your answers do not satisfy me," the black knight snarled. "If you never served the Templars, why did you name your ship _The Falcon_?"

"Because she flies like one," Han struggled to say while he still fought to drag breath into his lungs.

It was the wrong answer, and the winch toiled to yank all the ligaments that held his body together.

"Not good enough," the deep voice warned. "Before you leave this room, I will learn all your petty secrets. Now, from the beginning―" The gloved hand signaled before those self-assured claims could turn out a substantial question.

He was going from bad to worse, Han thought when the blighting pain let up again and couldn’t help wishing Guillaume would return with his absurd catalog of questions and his rational beliefs. Divine demands for truth didn’t restrain lords as almighty as the Count of Auvergne, and within minutes the randomness of his questions and the use he made of the rack cut through every illusion of sticking it out. With each turn of the winch, Han could feel the structure of his reasoning splinter like driftwood. There was no way of proving his ignorance, no way out of here, and all he could do was bargain for a break between the frying pan and the fire. The wrecking pains had grown so bad, he had to stop himself from flinching at the mere twitch of a hand on the lever.

"Confess," the Count repeated, and the vague glitter of his eyes behind the blackened faceplate blended far too easily with the image of the demon. "Unburden your soul."

Too far out on a sea set ablaze, Han didn’t recall any question, but it got through to him that he could ease some of the harrowing pressure. Between here and there, a nebulous distance opened inside his mind. The creaking howl of the winch became the planks of his ship under harsh weather, strained by the waves and the wind, and he could barely hear his own voice over the shriek of wood while the storm that ripped the _Falcon_ ’s tackle twisted through his own flesh and picked at his bones.

He confessed that he’d killed his stepfather the shipwright, though at first he didn’t think he had. He’d merely taken the man’s money before a greedy cousin from the next village could lay hands on it, using it to buy his first ship and start trading. A fevered haze consumed his mind, blurring one thought into the other as he fought for words. Stealing from a dead man was as good as killing him all over again, and they gave him a pause after that, so it had to be true.

With the cautious breaths he drew, awareness pieced itself together and registered that someone was rubbing fat into the soles of his feet. _Oh God, not that_... Han tensed before the muzzy blaze of a torch swayed into his field of vision.

_I shall please the Lord in the Land of the Living_ , the words drifted through his head, and some part of his mind sneered that surely he’d go to the other place first and burn a little while longer.

"What about the Templars’ treasure?" the black knight asked.

_What treasure?_ Han formed the thought through a daze. It was pointless to repeat that he didn’t know, but he tried anyway.

"The letters they carried make mention of it, but they don’t name the hiding place."

Han wrenched his eyes away from the torch so his head could clear. "I’m a commoner," he rasped out. "Why should they trust me with a secret like that?"

The gloved hand rose impatiently, but instead of issuing another wordless command curled into a fist. "Perhaps they did not," the deep voice conceded. "And perhaps there’s another way to find out."

Impossibly, the resonant steps backed away, and the bailiffs traded a look of relief as they secured the ropes, leaving him stretched out on the edge of endurance. One way or the other, it would soon be over.

Moored by that compact certainty, Han slipped into a mindless state of unknowing until insistent noises filtered through. Hinges squealing protest, the crackle and hiss of a fresh torch lit up at the fireplace, a shuffle of confused footsteps ending with the Count’s irate bellow.

"I warn you, I will have answers this time!"

Too distant to be meant for him. Han pried his eyes open and blinked against the brightness of greedy flames on his right. One of the bailiffs had moved to his side, the torch close enough for the heat to spill on his skin.

"What do you want from him?"

Luke’s voice. Instantly alarmed, Han barely checked an impulsive start at the sound. When he craned his neck, he could see Luke by the doorway, unharmed, his face pale and haggard as he struggled against the grip two _serjeants_ kept on his arms.

"He’s your servant, is he not?" The black knight cornered Luke with his towering height.

"He doesn’t know anything!" Luke shouted. "Have you never heard of compassion? How long will you go on tormenting an innocent man?"

"You’ve seen the letters," the clangorous voice countered with iron insistence. "The man you knew as Ben plotted to use the Order’s treasure to raise an army and defy the king’s justice."

"And I’ve told you before, I don’t know anything about such a treasure," Luke argued, a tremor of desperation threatening to break through in his voice. "He never told me―"

"Yes," the black knight hissed, "there is much that he never told you... about the Templars and the way they betrayed your father."

Luke shook his head. "My father died defending Acre."

"Your father is _alive_." The gloved hand closed around Luke’s throat. "It is _my_ sword that you carry. Look at me. _I_ am your father."

"No," Luke’s reply struggled up in a choked whisper.

"Left for the Saracens’ sport by the traitor you call Ben," the black knight said acidly, heavy breath puncturing his words. "He was known as Bertrand de Foix at the time, and he called himself my friend. Now tell me about compassion!" Without letting go of Luke, he reached for the rim of the helmet and pulled it off.

In the wavering light, Han couldn’t see anything save a hairless skull, the pallor of Luke’s face and the white terror in his eyes. Both guards lowered their heads.

"This is what he made of me! I’ve been banned from every court, because no one can bear to look at me. I still hold my lands, but he took my honor and my heir. I never even knew that I have a son until we captured the traitor."

"I don’t believe you," Luke whispered.

The Count let go and struck him hard across the face. "Insolence!" he snapped. "I’ve spared you the torture, because I need you strong and healthy to rule with me, but beware, there are other punishments!"

Luke staggered back against the guards, a thread of blood trickling from his broken lip. "I’m a Templar. I’ll never rule with you."

"You will," the Count told him. His voice regained its metallic edge as he drew the helmet back over his face. "Take a good look at this man and consider what you know of the hidden treasure."

_He doesn’t know anything, you goddamn bastard_... From the corner of his eye, Han saw the torch lift hesitantly. A mortal frost crawled over his skin, but he refused to look. In the Count’s wake, the guards pushed Luke towards the center of the room.

For a moment, their eyes locked. Ferocious heat grazed the side of Han’s neck and lowered to his shoulder. He tried to twist away from it, but a fist closed in his hair, and he could taste his own fear like cold iron on his tongue.

"Don’t do this," Luke pleaded, the fine bones of his jaw and cheek outlined starkly in the torchlight. "Father, please..."

The scorching heat struck home and wildfire leaped from flesh to mind. The last thing Han knew was a scream ricocheting through his head as he plummeted down a black pit of unconsciousness.

* * *

Blackness persisted when he opened his eyes, close around him with a smoky scent of pines. For a long time, bewilderment governed all his senses without cause or definition, until he plucked a first thread of understanding from drowsiness.

It was the weightless feel of his body that kept startling him. As if he’d expected... something else. _Odd_ , he thought, enveloped in darkness like a heavy, soothing sleep. The surface on which he was bedded felt soft as wool. When he stretched cautiously, the small motion prompted a dull ache between his shoulder-blades that belonged to neither heaven nor hell. Wherever _here_ was, he’d not crossed over to the next world yet.

From the placid dark came a rustle, then a dip of the mattress under him. "Han?"

In a fast reel, the sound of his name returned memory and spun him through a crazed succession of firelight, creaking wheels and unanswerable questions to a terrified scream. It was Luke who’d screamed, he knew now that he’d recognized his voice.

"Where are we?" It came out in a slur of broken vowels, and he swallowed against the dryness of his throat.

"Still in the papal palace." Luke’s hand slid around his neck and motioned him forward. "Here, drink something."

When the cool rim of a cup pressed against his lips, Han raised his hands mechanically and discovered that his wrists had been wrapped with thick layers of cloth. As the water trickled down his throat, he turned his attention to the rest of his body. At each draw of breath, he sensed the resistance of a stiff padding that covered his midriff. His ankles and feet had been wrapped equally tight. Someone must have tended his injuries while he was out cold. Though he didn’t regret missing that part, he wondered why they’d take such troubles with him, unless they wanted his legs to carry him to his own execution. Last time he recalled, he hadn’t even been able to stand.

"How much time left?" he asked, the words scraping in his throat.

"For what?" With a soft clatter, Luke set the cup back down and reached around to pull a cushion against his back. A cushion, of all things.

"‘Til they hang me," Han said, fumbling for sense among all the incongruous perceptions that addled his brain.

After a moment’s silence, Luke gave a sound like a choked laugh. "No," he said thickly, "no, they won’t."

"But why―"

The brush of a warm mouth against his own canceled the rest of the question, because suddenly his heart pounded in his throat with a rush close to terror and exhilaration alike. He cradled Luke’s head in both hands and held him close, drawing the breath from his mouth into himself until the dizziness passed, and their lips clung together, barely moving. Like a glow starting up in his chest, Han felt a fine heat spread all the way through him with a climbing pulse that thrummed nothing but _alive alive alive_...

"You’re safe," Luke murmured against his lips while his fingers traveled down the side of Han’s jaw. "It’s over."

"But how―?" Han groped through memory for the solid grounds of his conviction. "I confessed... a murder. And some other things."

"You didn’t confess anything. I’ve seen the transcripts. They still believe that you served the Order, but the inquisitor concluded that you had no share in any of our heresies."

"I thought I..." Han tried a cautious shake of the head and almost welcomed the twinge in his neck, as if it made things more real. He recalled Guillaume studying him with a puzzled frown that crinkled the skin right up to the top of his shaved head. "But ― you... the Count..."

"You remember."

"Is it true?"

"He is my father," Luke said colorlessly. "That part at least is true. He had no right to continue the torture, but I suppose Guillaume was too frightened to argue. My father realized he could use you to turn me."

Han sifted through the final fragments of recollection, his fingers tracing the edge of a sheet spread across his lower body.

"And then, what happened?" He heard a slow intake of breath, but no answer followed. "Didn’t think he’d lay off until he’s got what he wants," Han added.

"And what he wants is a son who follows the call of the blood and obeys his duties." Luke paused again. "I can’t do that."

Suspicion laced jumbled thoughts and memories back together. "Then why are we here?" Han asked, impatient with the aching rasp in his voice. "Why this generous treatment, all of a sudden?"

"I confessed. Everything." Luke’s tone firmed as he continued. "I don’t know anything about a treasure, but the rest was easy. Guillaume read out the Grand Master’s confession and the articles of accusation, and I agreed on all the points that seemed reasonable."

"Never mind that you told them a rotting heap of lies!" Han cursed under his breath.

"None of it is worth a life," Luke stopped him. "My father saw to it that the penance they imposed doesn’t go beyond fasting and prayers. I’ve given my word of honor that I renounce the Templars’ teachings for good. Now I have a choice between the monastery and a life as the Count’s heir."

He didn’t have to like it, Han told himself. After all they’d been through, only a dunce would argue with such a steep improvement. "There’s worse," he started. "You’ll live as a lord with your own―"

"And betray everything I ever believed in?" Luke pushed from the bed in a violent motion and paced out into the dark room. "But then, I already have," he said harshly, "with that confession."

"What else could you do?" When he turned his head after the sound of Luke’s voice, a faint warmth touched Han’s face, as if from a distant fire. He could even hear a muted crackle, but not so much as a spark penetrated the dense gloom. Not a spark.

Premonition drove a cold fist into the pit of his stomach. Something wasn’t right. After that string of nights in the lightless cell, darkness had become a protection, but now it squeezed around him and almost took his breath.

"Luke―"

"What is it?"

The words burst from his raw throat before he’d formed them in his mind. "I can’t see."

Sickened, he raised his hands, thinking they must have put out his eyes, but the skin around them was unbroken and both lids moved easily under his fingers.

"It will pass." Luke pried his hands away and held them in a hard grip. "Han, believe me. There’s nothing wrong with your eyes... I’ll get the doctor to explain it to you."

_Explain?_ Han thought as he slumped on the soft bed. _I’m blind, what’s to explain?_ Somewhere in the room burned a fire he couldn’t see. The notion threatened him with a consuming kind of terror he’d never felt while they kept at him. Thick as fogs, thoughts swirled in his head, all the things he’d never be able to do again ― all the things he’d loved to look at. Blackness curdled around him, and he hardly noticed when footsteps returned and someone started prodding and poking his bruises.

His attention perked up only when the doctor peeled the dressings off his ribcage.

"That burn is healing well," an elderly voice pronounced. "Sit up."

Numbed, Han felt the touch of bony hands probing the muscles in his sore shoulders. "Tell me why I can’t see," he finally blurted.

"It can happen under duress, when the humors are in turmoil," the doctor answered while he rubbed something smooth and cool into the skin across Han’s shoulders. "Dark vapors rising up from the liver can cloud vision as much as reason. Rest yourself, let your body regain its natural harmony, then you shall see again."

"How long?" Han insisted.

"Not long, under the conditions," the man returned vaguely. "You’re strong and healthy. You’ll recover."

To Han it sounded much like an admission of total ignorance. When the doctor left his bedside, he lay back stunned, confined in a darkness that welled up out of his own body.

"He should keep a strict diet," he heard the man’s voice from the direction where he suspected the door. "Dry, bright foods and diluted wine." Whatever that was supposed to cure.

"I’ll see to it. Thank you," Luke returned.

_Go to hell_ , Han thought and with another part of his mind wondered what else Luke had been forced to do and concede, to get him that kind of preferential treatment. Unless the papal inquisitor suffered from a sense of shame after putting the screws on the wrong man.

Han squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again and nothing changed. Fury swept him with a welcome heat snapping through every muscle, and he shook off the hand that reached for his arm.

"Leave me alone! They should’ve finished with me while they had a chance."

"Think of what you’ve gained," Luke said intensely. "You’re safe, and you’re free. They’ll expect a promise of peace before you leave, that’s all."

"Leave!" Han snorted. "Where d’you think I’ll go like this, except straight to hell?"

Luke seized his forearms so hard his shoulders started to throb again. "Listen," he said tightly, "you’ve survived all this, and I won’t let you give up now. We’re leaving, both, as soon as you’re ready."

"Oh aye, in a year or two," Han snapped.

Very slowly, as if it meant an effort, Luke unclenched his fingers. "We’ll speak of this later."

 

Enveloped in pitch blackness, _later_ held no meaning at all. Time slowed in the dark while distances shrunk and grew at random, and that hungry pit within his mind got busy breeding taunting images of himself begging for bread up and down the streets of Avignon. Han slept fitfully, heartbeat thundering in his ears each time he opened his eyes to a night of his own making. It felt as if days had passed when the door rumbled open again.

"I’ve brought you something to eat," Luke said and accepted his angry silence without questions.

His stomach clenched around every bite, reminding him to take it slow. The watered wine had an acidulous aftertaste, but he drank it all down despite the sting in his throat.

When he’d finished, Luke touched his hand. "You should get up now."

Han gritted his teeth against an impulse to refuse and stay right where he was. He took a few staggering steps before his head started swimming and forced him to fling out his arms for balance. The queasiness passed in a moment, but the unrelenting dark sprang imagined walls and corners at him until he paused, breathing hard.

"Come on," Luke said beside him, "you’re doing well. You can do it."

With a firm hand on Han’s elbow, he showed him around the room, the fireplace and the narrow alcove by the window. Han almost winced at the play of air and daylight on his face, terrified by his own vulnerable state.

"You’d better go without me," he said in all sobriety.

"I won’t," Luke’s voice came from half a step behind him. "And I need your help."

"My help." Each word caught like a hook in his throat. "I’m not good for anything now."

"That’s for me to decide. I say we’re leaving together." Stubbornly insistent, Luke guided him back to the bed. "Are you listening?"

"All right, all right," Han growled, groping for the edge of the fleece-covered mattress before he lowered himself. "What’s the plan?"

"We’ll hire a boat with your money―"

"My money? You mean they gave it back?"

"They have no right to keep it."

Most likely because a handful of florins and a small purse of silver made no difference to them, Han thought, not inclined to trust anybody’s promises of justice. "What kind of boat?" he asked.

"A trader’s barge. Many of them come to Avignon and sail further upstream past Orange to Lyons."

Luke didn’t need to mention that escape by water was their only workable chance. Even tied to the saddle, a blind man on horseback wouldn’t make it a single mile down the road. Han swallowed against the bilious anger climbing up his throat.

"Pick a ship with a good sail and oars," he said, "but not too large, or she won’t be fast enough, going upstream. And we’ll have to wait for the right kind of wind, or they’ll catch us within a day."

"We have a steady wind from the south right now," Luke returned, a smile in his voice.

"So how do we get to the boat unnoticed?" Han pulled a view of the city gates and the river from recollection, considering it for a moment. "There’s got to be guards all over the palace."

"Yes, but they’re still building the ramparts, and that makes it hard to watch everyone who’s coming and leaving. I’ll get a pair of monks’ robes for us. To the men-at-arms, all monks will look alike, and the pope receives many visitors every day."

"It could work," Han said grudgingly, not ready to allow too much room for the purpose and confidence that began stirring through his black temper.

"It will." Luke rose to his feet. "And I’ll get you out of here."

Before he could move away, Han pushed up and caught him in his arms. "Thanks," he muttered awkwardly. "I just need some more time to... handle all this."

When Luke pressed back against him without a word, arms tight around his middle, the familiar flow of desire gained a sharp edge in the dark, and Han had to quench it fast. They were still far from safe.

"I’m to blame for this," Luke said, his voice muffled as he buried his face at Han’s shoulder.

"Stop that, you hear?" Han held him off at arm’s length. Too close to a landslide of loss and furious regret, the best he could do was hang on to practical matters. "What about your father? Doesn’t he suspect that you’ll try to run?"

"My father," Luke said as if pronouncing words in a foreign dialect, "can’t imagine that I’d want to be anything but the heir to his lands and riches. Besides, he spends a lot of time with Palestine and his counselors." He stepped back, breaking all physical contact. "I’d better go now, and I won’t be able to come here too often. Maybe I won’t be back before I’ve made all the preparations. Try to be ready."

"What d’you mean, try?" Han growled at him. "I’m ready right now."

A soft laugh drifted over from the door, and he grinned shakily at the beautiful sound of it. _Maybe_ , he thought, _maybe we’ll make it_.

* * *

Keeping track was easier now that he had the change from warm, humid days to nocturnal breezes to go by, and the bells that rang out every single hour from Matins to Complet. If the wind lessened enough, he could even hear the monks chant in the middle of the night, and at other times, a vagabond breeze carried sounds from the river. Luke came in early the second morning, reporting that he’d sent a messenger to negotiate their passage aboard a cloth merchant’s barge.

On the third day, Guillaume paid a visit with an entourage of witnesses and after a brisk, formal apology demanded Han’s oath to forget about revenge and recompense other than the pope’s generosity of letting him stay in his guesthouse until he’d healed. For a few moments, Han was sorely tempted to throw some colorful curses back at him and embarrass the monk out of his righteous repose.

"God will repay you a hundredfold," Guillaume said with conviction, once Han had echoed the pledge of peace.

"All I need him to do is give back my sight," he returned.

"I shall pray for it."

Han didn’t bother to say thanks before he had proof that God listened to Guillaume’s prayers. For now, there was no change at all. An impenetrable gloom had settled in his eyes, no matter how long he turned his face to the window or the fireplace.

He’d been about to doze off that night when the door’s latch rattled against the wood, and the small noise quickened his senses like a thunderbolt. He was on his feet before Luke had closed the door behind himself.

"Are we going?"

"We have to," Luke answered. "My father had word from the king, and he’s setting out for Paris tomorrow."

"The ship’s ready to leave?" Han reached for his tunic and fastened it over the new shirt they’d given him.

"They’re setting sail right now." Luke pressed a bundled robe into his hands. "Here, put this on."

As he pulled the coarse cloth over his head, Han tried to imagine the picture he made. "How’s this?" he asked, shouldering the bag with his few belongings. He’d paced the room often enough to move around with ease. "Do I look like a monk to you?"

"Save for the hair." He could almost see Luke’s smile. "And the look on your face. Pull up the hood."

The robe wasn’t quite long enough to cover his boots, but they’d have to trust the protection of darkness anyway. Luke stayed close beside him as they crossed the open yard, and although the breeze was cool on his face, Han felt instant sweat break all over his skin. Walking out into absolute, starless night tricked his senses with shadow drops and obstacles at every step, and keeping up a sure stride took all of his attention. He nearly flinched at the faint clink of metal, and imagination painted out the silhouette of an armed _serjeant_ turning on his post. Without slowing down, Luke mumbled a Latin blessing.

"Same to you, brother," an ale-slurred voice called after them, followed by the snickers of several men.

"We’re through," Luke whispered a few moments later. "It’s only a short walk to the city gate."

"I know," Han muttered back.

Relief touched him with the sound and smell of the river, like something out of a half-remembered dream, and it closed like a shell of air and darkness around him. Nothing could stop them now. He quickened his pace as they crossed the final stretch of muddy ground and rocks to the waterside. Voices hailed them in drawling Norman, and he could hear the river suck and lap at the barge’s hull.

"Careful," Luke warned when someone reached a hand to him, but he climbed over the board without slipping, taking directions from knowledge and habit that lodged in his muscles more than his mind.

Although the barge wasn’t even half the size of the _Falcon_ , all he needed was the old sway of planks beneath his boots for a sense of balance to return.

Han gulped a long breath of the night-wind as they gained the middle of the stream, oars laboring against the current. When he closed his eyes, he could make himself believe that he stood on the _Falcon_ ’s broad weather deck, and for the time being, he gave in gladly to the illusion.

* * *

The barge pulled ashore early the next morning, and they disembarked before the river could carry them deeper into the French kingdom. If the Count had sent anyone after them, perhaps the pursuers would be fooled into tracking the ship that continued on to Lyons.

"We have to walk straight into the east," Han said, wishing for a touch of sunlight to get his bearings instead of the cold drizzle that ran into his eyes. "Can you see the mountains? That’s the right direction."

They pressed on all day, and although the terrain remained level, their progress was slow. Luke had to warn him against every stray rock and branch and lead him whenever the path wormed through bramble thickets or scaled rocky slopes. Much as Han tried to ignore his smarting back and the leaden feel in his legs, he wondered how he’d manage once they started climbing into the mountains again.

By midday, the fine, incessant drizzle turned into a steady rain that soaked his coarse robe until he could feel it like an added weight on his body. He plodded on in silence, his head throbbing in time with the ache between his shoulder-blades.

When he tripped over another root in the path, Luke stopped him with a hand on his arm. "You need to rest."

"Oh, and you don’t?" Han snapped.

"I’m beginning to feel tired as well," Luke acknowledged in calm, unrevealing tones. "It will get dark soon, and we need a shelter for the night. Why don’t you wait here? I can see smoke not too far off."

Han put out his hand to the rough bark of a tree, lowered himself against its trunk, and wrapped both arms around himself for warmth. Not that it helped much.

Through the splattering of rain on the leaves, he heard Luke crash back through the undergrowth within a short while.

"There’s a little cell nearby," he reported. "The monks are very poor, but at least we’ll have a dry place to sleep."

"Monks," Han echoed. "Just the company I wanted."

"You won’t have to talk to them," Luke answered casually, playing deaf to his bitter tone. "There’s no guesthouse, but they’ve just rebuilt the chapel, and the old one’s still standing. We can stay in there."

 

The old chapel had been built from wood, and the ground was bare, but at least the roof kept out the rain. Han felt like falling asleep the moment he sat down.

"I’ve been thinking..." Luke started. "We can’t cross the mountains on foot."

"We don’t have the money to buy horses," Han said curtly while he wadded up the wet robe into a makeshift pillow. "And where would we get them anyway?"

"Orange," Luke answered. "The monks say it’s only a few more miles from here. Even one horse would be a help. If I leave straight away, I could be back before morning."

"I thought you were tired."

"I’ll sleep later."

From the sound of it, Luke had already made up his mind, so Han didn’t argue. _Maybe he simply wants to go_ , he thought, _and be alone for a while_.

Wetness dripped onto his hands as Luke crouched down before him. "Han," he said, "don’t worry. You’ve pushed yourself too hard today. It will get easier as soon as―"

"No, it won’t," Han cut in sharply. "It won’t, ‘cause I’m blind, and whatever the doctor said, it’ll take a miracle to change that."

"Then perhaps you should pray for one," Luke returned. "We’re in a chapel."

"Pray?" Han repeated incredulously. If it had been anyone else, he might have suspected mockery, but Luke probably meant it. "Can you see any priest around here? How’s it going to help, praying all by myself?"

"You could try..." Luke faltered, and a moment later, Han felt a hand brush through his damp hair. "Just stay here and rest, will you?"

"What else," he said hoarsely, stiffening under the light caress.

Each time Luke touched him, he wanted to reach back and hold on, but the damnable helplessness drove its jagged edge into him and anger rose thick as smoke into the wanting.

"I’ll be back as fast as I can," Luke promised.

"Be careful," Han sent grudgingly after him, but the door had already closed.

Though he didn’t recall that he’d ever felt so exhausted before, his back burned too much to let him sleep. They’d never make it all the way to Bruges like this. The most reasonable thing to do, Han decided, would be to tramp off tonight, get lost so that Luke could travel without a burden. Except that Luke would find him within hours and insist that they stay together. _Because he’s assuming the blame and he pities me_... The thought traced every feeling with a sour aftertaste. _If only I could stop wanting him so much_.

All at once, Han’s mind slithered into memory and brought back the night they’d spent in the widow’s house, the last good thing in his life, like a coastline that shimmered across a vague distance, dividing day from night. Although it made no difference, he closed his eyes before he summoned the sight of Luke’s face, flushed cheeks and eyes aglow with more than reflected flames. But how long until this darkness would claw through the rest of his mind to cloud and eclipse the image?

Disregarding the protest from every aching muscle, Han pushed to his feet and paced around the enclosure until the stone altar stopped him. It was a rough slab that barely reached up to the height of his hips. When he ran his fingers across the dusty surface, he felt the lines of a crudely carved cross. A priest’s blessing and some scattered drops of holy water had turned a wooden shed into a house of God, the doorstep to an invisible kingdom. It was supposed to make his voice ring louder. _Pray_ , he thought, _and why not?_

He said as much of the _paternoster_ as he recalled, but it only fueled his anger.

"Let me see again," he shouted. "I can’t live like this!"

Not much of a prayer, to be sure. Han listened after the sound of his voice and silence fell like a solid weight. So many beautiful things to look at... like the sea changing each hour of the day, gulls weaving weightless pattern in the air, and the slender white ships sailing the coasts of Egypt. The brightness in Luke’s eyes. All he could do was hold on to the memories as long as possible.

Fatigue rose giddily into his mind, and he staggered back to where he’d left his bag and the drenched robe. Han fell asleep before he could take his boots off.

 

Sometime in the middle of the night, he woke up suffocating. Damp cloth covered his face and wouldn’t let him breathe. Through the moment’s terror, he felt that someone had seized his shoulder. Struggling viciously, Han wrenched his head away and finally got a lungful of air. Flashing heat split his mind. Something dropped to the ground and burst into glimmers like glow-worms.

"Han," a voice filtered through to him, "it’s me."

"What’s that?" he gasped, scrambling up to his knees. Though dim and unsteady, the shimmer remained as he blinked his eyes.

"What? That ― that’s a candle." It was Luke’s voice, shaking with relief. "I wasn’t thinking. You’d pulled the robe over your face, and I... you almost burned yourself. Wait, let me get it for you."

Han sagged back against the timber wall, his mind blank. From the swirling brown murk before him rose a foggy gleam until it filled his entire sight.

"You see this, don’t you?" Luke asked.

"A big bright blur," he answered without much of a voice. "Jesusmaryand―" He cleared his throat and kept staring at the candle-flame.

The most beautiful thing it was, flickers of blue chasing through lively gold, and it touched all his senses the longer he watched, not merely his eyes. Warm as a breath, it slid over his face and limbs, and a hidden power that he’d not felt before seemed to flow from the man beside him.

_The secret light in all things_ , Han remembered. Nothing but words at the time, yet now it shivered all over his skin, close and real.

"So there’s your miracle," Luke said after a long while.

When Han reached for him, the candle dropped a second time, but he could feel the soundless laughter tremble in Luke’s chest and held him harder.

"I don’t believe this."

The small flame had gone out, but for the moment he didn’t care.

"I’ve got a horse outside," Luke said, both hands digging into Han’s tunic. "At first they told me to come back in the morning because it’s too late for business, but―"

"I almost left," Han interrupted and the knot that came unraveled somewhere in his chest made it difficult to get the words out. "I was thinking I should go before it got too bad."

"What?" Luke shook his head. "What do you mean by that?"

"Before you’d want to get rid of me," Han tried to explain. "What would you―"

He didn’t get any further. With an angry burst of breath, Luke wrapped one hand firmly around his jaw and kissed him until Han was out of breath all over again and in no shape to argue.

"I’ve never..." Luke stopped again, his thumb tracing the curve of Han’s lower lip. "There was never anyone in my life ― nothing like this. I want to be with you so much it frightens me at times."

They were still kneeling on the ground as if a single move could dislodge this sheltering dream. Han felt his pulse thump harder under the soft glide of Luke’s mouth against his throat.

"We’d better lie down," he murmured, crushing Luke against his chest, "before we keel over."

* * *

The next time he woke, complete darkness had returned, and he was starting to wonder if he’d dreamed the last night when a diffuse gray streak split the gloom, followed by a soft squeal.

"It’s morning," Luke said across the distance of several steps.

Knuckling his eyes, Han made an attempt to order his disheveled clothes before he joined Luke by the door. While the air had warmed, he felt no touch of direct sunlight on his face.

"There’s not much to see right now," Luke told him. "The rain has stopped, but the sky’s still full of clouds."

The world outside was made up from blurry shades of gray and charcoal, but Han could have looked at it for a week. "I’m not complaining," he returned under his breath. "Not at all."

"Good." Luke reached for his hand. "I’ve saddled the horse, and the monks gave me some bread and cheese. We’re ready to go."

The horse he’d bought was a sturdy mare with a broad, sloping back. Its heavy gait hardly compared to the courser’s agility, but once he’d got used to riding again, Han was free to look around and play games with himself, trying to make sense of the vague shapes and occasional glitters that dappled the shadows of pine groves and thickets.

At noon, they’d traveled halfway into the mountains northeast of Orange and stopped to wash in a small stream.

"I could walk the next couple of miles," Han offered as he climbed out of the water and groped around for his tunic. Chill drops prickled pleasantly on his skin, and besides the occasional twinge in his neck and shoulders, he felt rested and vigorous.

From somewhere close behind, Luke sent a spray of cold water lashing up. "You’re riding, even if I have to tie your feet into the stirrups."

 

At dusk, they found another limestone hut, larger than the one they’d camped in on the way to Avignon, and the smell of dusty stone brought a faint taste of cider back to Han’s tongue.

"Someone stayed here not too long ago," Luke said. "The ashes in the fireplace still look fresh."

"A shepherd maybe." Han set down his bag and began to sort through their provisions while Luke went to collect dry wood and fuel. The bandage across his ribcage had been soaked during the bath in the river and gave him an itch, so he peeled it off carefully. He’d keep a scar to remind him of his encounter with Dragon d’Aurillac, and maybe someday it would make a good story, but that day was still a long way off.

When Luke started the fire, Han squatted down before it to study the hazy dance of blues and coppers and dazzling white on the updraft, unmoving until the colors seemed to sparkle through to the back of his head. Luke crouched down behind him and pulled up his shirt.

"How is your back?" he asked, running his palms up the length of Han’s spine. "The doctor gave me an ointment against the swelling. I should have thought of it last night."

Han opened his mouth to say he barely felt his bruises anymore, but thought better of it in a moment. The salve gave off a clean, spicy scent as Luke worked it into his skin, searching along the tracks of violent abuse with slow, determined strokes.

Han let his eyes slip closed, fireplay dimming to an indefinite glow while the gentleness of Luke’s hands conjured a pleasure that rose to his head and lowered dark and smooth into his groin. But instead of growing restless, he wanted to hold it there, and thoughts about tomorrow wound their way into his mind.

_I want this to last_ , he thought mutinously, impossible as it seemed.

"We’ll be out of France in a day or two," he started, not sure how to ask about a future he’d never considered for himself. "Then we won’t be forced to hide anymore."

Luke’s hands stilled on his shoulders. "I don’t know what went on in Ben’s mind... what he thought the two of us could achieve in Paris. Perhaps he would have told me if they hadn’t caught us so fast."

"You couldn’t have liberated the king’s prisoners. Not without an army," Han returned, not too sure Luke was even listening.

"All those confessions they showed me... I don’t know anymore. I wonder if Ben truly believed he could piece the Order together again." Luke’s hands tightened fretfully before they fell away from Han’s shoulders. "I need more time to understand... what Ben did. What I should do. He must have known about my father."

"He probably had his reasons for not telling you."

"Maybe," Luke said shortly.

When Han turned back, the blaze of firelight reflected on Luke’s shirt and hair and made a pale, evasive shadow of him. Something in his movements betrayed controlled tension as he spread their robes and cloaks on the ground for a makeshift bed.

"Come here," Luke said when he’d finished. With a twitch of his shoulders, he seemed to shake off all restraining doubts. "I want to take the rest of your clothes off."

Han moved over slowly, letting go of all thought to feel only the touch of Luke’s fingers and the warmed air brushing his skin. It felt strange, to know that Luke studied every inch of him while he lay flat on his back, enveloped in floating twilight.

Luke bent over him, and Han used the moment to get his hands under the loose shirt and slip it over his head. Shadows flickered across Luke’s chest, and he chased them with his mouth while he stripped away the rest of Luke’s garments.

"What do you want to do now?" he finally asked. "Once we’ve crossed the border."

"Stay with you," Luke said, a note of surprise in his voice. "I thought we’re going to Bruges, back to the _Falcon_."

"If you think you can live like a sailor..."

Luke’s breath went out softly. "Yes," he murmured, "but there’s more. What I’ve found with you... Christ taught love and never condemned any of its forms. Now I know why."

Han’s breath caught on the pressure of Luke’s mouth against his own and the future’s sudden closeness, both merging into one as Luke’s tongue slipped past his lips and parted teeth. Dizzy and strung out as he’d been the night before, recollection returned with the feel of Luke’s body shifting under his hands. Entwined on the ground, desire rising hard and fast, they’d kissed and pressed into each other like adolescent boys, rolling back and forth with the irresistible rhythm of a tide on the turn.

"There’s so much I haven’t seen yet," Luke said breathlessly.

"We could spend the winter in Alexandria," Han returned, distracted by the slide of bare skin against his own that blended memory into the present. "...or Constantinople."

When his fingers played through the soft, fair strands, Luke gave him a fierce embrace. "Tell me another story about travels to the edge of the world."

"Your turn," Han said lazily, teasing the fingers of one hand down the ridge of Luke’s spine while the other traced the movements of his face.

"I don’t think I know any story like that."

"What about... Saint Brendan’s journey to the Blessed Isles? That’s one you should’ve heard... it’s got all kinds of devils and demons and harrowed souls in it."

Under his fingertips, he felt Luke’s smile. "Yes, I remember..."

Before Han could capture his mouth again, the fair head dipped below the edge of his vision. "It was like this," Luke murmured into the curve of his collarbone, "Brendan sailed out into the West for seven months until one day they saw a forest rise out of the middle of the sea..."

He’d heard the story many times before, but this time it swept him along into desire like a boundless midnight ocean. When Brendan’s _curragh_ passed the island where lost souls wandered around in circles, Luke’s fingers explored the inside of his arms and traced his nipples; when a sea of glass held the travelers captive, his hands rested spread out over Han’s chest and measured his quick breathing. Griffons swooped down on a forest of masts and mizzen trees where countless ships crowded around the Magnet Mountain, and the wind sang like a rush of blood in his ears. Luke’s hands coasted along his flanks, shaping the gale into sharp thrills that came in faster succession, until Han felt the tightening run through every muscle. Before the ship reached the far shores of the West, he kissed the words from Luke’s mouth, and the journey continued beneath his skin, along the rivers and tributaries that joined into a single rapid current.

All he wanted then was to hold Luke stretched out atop him and lose himself to the compelling rhythm of living motion between them, but Luke slipped from his hold to sit back, straddling his thighs. Han groaned helplessly when Luke spread the cool ointment on his cock, not one thought breaking the surface as a deep inner pressure gathered along his senses. He couldn’t stop it. He gave himself over to the hands that guided him between Luke’s thighs and into his body ― and that this was in some ways a sacrilege came into his mind, together with the heat and the gripping tension that pulled him forward, deeper with each draw and release of breath.

When Luke leaned over to take his mouth, he gripped the narrow hips, urging him downward as he pushed up, the shock of it passing through them in one single wave. Luke’s voice made a spell of his name as they rolled to the side, thrusting together. Torn to a pitch of pleasure, Han shuddered release into the depth of Luke’s body, gasping love and longing against his mouth. Still entangled, they lay wrapped up in merged body heat and the sound of rough breathing.

When Han opened his eyes, the fire had settled into a steady, pale shine that edged Luke’s hair and ran in a slim band across his shoulder.

"What do you see?" Luke murmured.

Han framed his face in both hands. "I can see all that burns."

 

**=== E PILOGUE ===**

All Hallows Day started out clear and crisp. Like a bronze platter, the rising sun rolled through the fogs when Jehan climbed the forecastle. He’d been waiting for a month, and since there was no way of telling how much longer it would take, perhaps he should lay off half the _Falcon_ ’s crew for the winter. It would save money, but the notion didn’t agree with him. Most of the sailors had worked for Han a year or more, and dismissing them was as good as admitting defeat.

Jehan carded his fingers through his beard and turned for a look at the city. Storm tides had washed out the coast and driven the sea inward against the walls of Bruges with each year. Closer than the spire of the new brick church where they kept some drops of the Sacred Blood, the gabled roofs of storehouses poked through the mists. At this early hour, no one moved there. Except for two ragged-looking travelers who came walking up the paved quay in long, easy strides.

Recognition struck Jehan like an autumn gale. Though Han looked lean and gaunt, his assured steps and the way he carried himself were unmistakable, and when fair hair glinted in the sodden light, Jehan could put a name to his companion as well.

On the weather deck, crewmen were beginning to stir from sleep and traded casual curses as they prepared to face the day.

"Our captain’s returned!" Jehan shouted.

That had them instantly on their feet, and in moments they lined up by the freeboard, leaning over for a sight of the travelers.

"Who’s the man beside him?" one of the sailors asked curiously.

"An angel of God who’s been guiding him home," Jehan snapped. "Now move it, all of you! He’ll want the ship under sail before the sun sets."

A wide grin spread over his face as soon as the men had turned their backs. Grabbing the shrouds, Jehan swung himself up onto the freeboard.

"Ho, Captain!" he hollered. "So good to have you back!"

* * * * *

**Author's Note:**

> First published in: ELUSIVE LOVER – ALTERNATE VISIONS, 1999.
> 
> HISTORICAL NOTES:
> 
> In May 1314, Jacques de Molay, last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burned as a relapsed heretic. In the same year, both the French king, Philip IV. the Fair, and Pope Clement V. (who’d moved the Papal Curia to Avignon) died.
> 
> Dragon d’Aurillac, for all I know, was a humble abbot, notable only for his refusal to follow the king’s summons in 1303, and of course no pope ever took the name Palestine. 
> 
> For Guillaume’s interrogation of Han, I’ve borrowed some of the dialogue from historical records documenting the proceedings against the Templars. The techniques of interrogation and torture (and their purpose) reflect contemporary practice, based on sources like Bernard Gui’s notorious manual, _Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis_.
> 
> The provençal lyrics are part of a song by Duke William IX. of Aquitaine (12th century). The verses quoted in Latin come from Psalm 114, antiphon to the first psalm in the office for the dead. 
> 
> And yes, the Templars had a famous ship named ‘The Falcon’ that saved many lives after the battle of Acre.
> 
> * * *


End file.
